Small Town Murder - #312 - Drowning In Stupidity & Evidence - Fort Smith, Montana

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

This week, in Fort Smith, Montana, an ambitious, and educated young couple settle into this tiny town, with high hopes. But as things begin to crumble, there are everything from public arguments to assaults with, and over, cookies. One night, one of the couple leaves, and doesn't come home, only to be found, floating face down in the river, with plenty of evidence to show that they didn't just tumble into the water. But will lousy police work, a seeming lack of effort, and some possible incompetence ruin the whole investigation, and make a family suffer even more? It's a hairy, dirty murder mystery, that will shock you, all the way up to the current day! Along the way, we find out that everyone can't wait to pretend to be Custer, that no one falls into water & strangles themselves, and that burned cookies are never cause for violence!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Fort Smith, Montana, burn cookies and building up tension are the prelude to a sudden disappearance that ends in a gruesome discovery and a strange twisted path toward

the killer. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us. We are excited as usual today, which is strange because it's murder, but it's a crazy story as always,

and we will get into it because, wow, last week with the twins, I don't even know what that was. Gross. know what that was gross can you i don't even know that how much bad dna can you can you pool into two human beings together to make that 700 pounds of awful yeah that's man they were bad if you didn't listen last week you should definitely go back and do that thank you for everything that you do for us as well you want to definitely head over to shut up and give me murder.com today get all of your first of all your merchandise and your tickets to live shows absolutely coming up here we have milwaukee at the pabst that is currently sold out but you did it people you did thank you but people can return tickets so a couple will pop up here and there so keep looking if you want them and of course we are at september 23rd we We're in Tampa at the Tampa Improv.

Two shows that night. Those are two different shows, by the way. So if you want to go to both. And the next night, we are in Orlando, September 24th at the Orlando Improv

for two shows. So get those tickets. Come see us and come out and hang out with us. We can't wait. And a few tickets have opened up

for that Austin show, Austin, Texas, in November. So get your tickets to that. We're excited to do all of that. We're also excited for Patreon, my goodness. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports is where you want to get all

of your bonus goodness here. Wonderful way to support the show as well, but we are going to give you back just as much for the price of a cup of coffee. $5 a month or more. You are going to get every other week, you're going to get two new episodes. That's what you're going to do.

This week we are going to do, for crime and sports, we're going to talk about sex scandals. It's going to be part two because we got into that Duke senior thesis that that woman wrote, and wowie wow. It's quite the thesis. We'll get into that and plenty of other weird stuff and then for small town murder we're going to talk about first of all that that new zodiac killer documentary right where the guy wrote a whole book about how his dad is the zodiac killer

and then when it's put under just the slightest bit of scrutiny just a tiny bit it falls apart like 20 year old underwear it's a disaster disaster. The whole theory is very weird. So we'll talk about where the investigation stands, where the suspects are at this point. Because a lot of people, new information pops up all the time. And people, if they don't really follow it closely, they're like, did they ever find the guy? Or what the hell's going on with that? It is nuts. It's crazy.

We'll talk all about that. That is patreon.com slash crime and sports. And you will get a shout out at the end of the show. Or, of course, Jimmy will mispronounce your name terribly while trying his best to get it correct. That's how that's going to work. And there you go. Disclaimer time. This is a comedy show.

We're comedians. And also terrible murder happens. These happen next to each other because there's a way to do that. First of all, a lot of the comedy, small towns. We're going to make fun of small towns because we're all from somewhere crappy, so let's all make fun of it. You know what? That's fun.

It's a good time. And in addition to that, we go out of our way not to make fun of, absolutely as much as we can, not make fun of the victim or the victim's family. Why, James? Because we're assholes, yes, but we're not scumbags. There you have it. That's how that works. So if that sounds good to you, you are going to hear a wild story.

If not, maybe you think true crime and comedy never, ever should go together. And if you think that, that's fine. But maybe you could be a little mistaken in your interpretation of what we're doing here. Either way, if you don't like it, whatever. No complaining later because we've warned you. So there you go. You've been told. That said, I think it's time to sit back, Jimmy, clear the lungs, and shout,

Shut up and give me murder! Let's do this, Jimmy. What do you say? Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's do it. Let's do it. We're going all the way this week to Montana. My goodness, have not been in Montana since episode 193.

Land of the stuff. I don't know what I do there. I think on the license plate it's Big Sky Country. Yeah. Because there's a lot of it. That's all there is. It's just sky and land and it just goes on. Is it up in the mountains but it's flat?

There's flat parts. It's huge. There's flat parts, mountain parts. It's just a lot of stuff. You can see sky and not like buildings, I assume here. This is Fort Smith, Montana. Another town named Fort something here. It's in southern Montana.

It's about an hour and a half to Billings, Montana, which is one of their quote unquote cities there. It's not very big. Missoula and that's it, right? That's about all, yeah. And then seven hours to Darby, which is the last episode we did, like I said, over 100 episodes ago, so a long time ago. This is in Bighorn County. Yeah.

I assume for the sheep. The area code's 406, and the motto is here, Mouth of the Canyon. Mmm. That sounds dirty, right dirty right and that sound dirty yeah yeah it's an open an open parted mouth of the canyon ready for something dirty get in here very weird and this is very close to harden montana by the way because fort smith is an insanely small town so some of the facts we'll talk about Hardin, which is right close by and slightly larger. Their city, I just love their motto, quote, a city with a reason. Because, look, James, it's already hard. I mean, we have a reason for being here.

Like, right away, they feel like they need to have an explanation for existing. They're like, listen, we have a reason, okay? We're not just putting a town up willy-nilly here yeah it's a very weird attitude to have so the history of this town fort smith was established in 1866 the whole point of this was the bozeman trail went through here okay it's also bozeman montana also bozeman montana and this was uh people who were going out west were being attacked by the Sioux tribes around there. And the Sioux of this area, the Teton Sioux, the other natives were scared of them. They were particularly tough.

They were a tough group. Yeah, they were known as a goddamn group you didn't really want to fuck with. Particularly gangster around there. Yeah, absolutely. didn't really want to fuck with so particularly gangster around yeah absolutely so they they ended up making this trail and uh this was i guess that the the trail went 400 yards from the fort so it was like they put the fort right next to the trail so you don't have to go out of the woods at all you pussies you're going out west but stay right on that trail so they had the within the area is the devil's canyon overlook which is which is, this is a really nice place.

Like this, the, these Devil's Canyon Overlook has cliffs that are a thousand feet above the lake. Shit. Yeah. It's like beautiful. You know, it's a lot of. Don't you jump off those cliffs though. I wouldn't want to. I think that's a, that's a dare.

That's a bit high. Yeah. That's, there's like five 13 year old boys going, I'll do it if you do it, pussy. That'll bust every blood vessel in your feet. Oh, man. That'll fuck you up 1,000 feet. Jesus, that's like jumping off a bridge. You can't do that.

What is that? That's a fifth of a mile. That's way too long. You can't do that. You'll die. You'll die. That's not good. That'll kill you, right?

I would assume so. That'll be like hitting concrete. Yeah. If it kills you to jump off a bridge, I would think it would kill you to jump off this. I don't know exactly. Yeah, that's just a few hundred feet, right? This is 1,000 feet. That's a lot.

So this is a huge fishing area, too. And one of the people in our story is involved in fishing. He's a fishing guide. So we'll talk about that here. Nearby in Hardin, they have the largest wheat farm on 95,000 acres. The largest of one wheat farm.

That's the most we got? That's the most wheat possible here, apparently. And then the Holly Sugar Company established a sugar beet processing plant in 1937. That's that gross that there you got sugar beets are those popular are those the thing that we do we feed that to livestock i don't think i've ever i don't know what they do sugar is that just our regular beets sugar beets does

that where they get sugar no because sugar comes from cane no this is like that's some low-grade shit if you're pulling sugar from beets, what kind of candy is that? That's like the shit that if you go to, you know, you go to like Nogales and people try to sell you. Sugar beets? Yeah, sugar beet candy. And you're like, what is this? This is weird. Why does it taste like beets?

It's got to be for livestock, right? Maybe. I have no fucking clue. So either way, let's get some reviews. These are reviews of Harden, which, like I said, is exactly it's just slightly bigger and next door. There's no reviews for Fort Smith. It's that small. So Hardin five stars.

I live and work here and absolutely love the town and how small it is. OK, Hardin ain't overpacked with traffic and in a small town. Yeah. Yeah. Hardin ain't overpacked with traffic and in a small town. That's Yeah. Harden ain't over packed with traffic and in a small town. That's I believe how that is supposed to be said. That's how it's pronounced.

That's speech to text I believe right there. So right away that's what we got. Three stars. Yeah. I like that the store in Harden is easy to find. Good parking. The store. The store.

You wouldn't hide it. it would be right on main street probably easy to find where's that store well you drive start see that path in the woods start there about two and a half miles you're going to come to the old henderson barn you're going to want a bare left at that point now there's a fork in the road where the old oak tree used to be you whisper to a man the password do you know it there's a squirrel there pet him on the head three times he'll get a man named bobby joe now bobby joe has the combination to the lock that opens the cattle guard that blocks the road and bobby joe's a frightful sort so you better you better find him in a good good mood be prepared for bobby joe he ain't taking no shit from nobody that's he's famous for it that's what his doormat says so watch out um a little weird easy to find

most this past year the front automatic doors did not close, resulting in the store being being cold, making for uncomfortable shopping. The store had doors that were broken, broken doors that would open and not close in the winter in Montana. So apparently that's going to make the store cold. How about have an employee close them afterwards? How about that? I mean, even when those things don't open, you can if you if you disable the lock that you can pry them open and then just shut them back have a guy standing there how you doing open close the door sorry they're broke we'll fix them you're not everybody freezes instead till we do we're doing this i made my purchases quickly and left the

store is this all about the store is there anything else the store aisles it's all about the store the store aisles or on sprouted the items are put away i don't know what that means the store aisles or on sprouted the items are put away that's it anybody text yeah anybody can fucking translate that to type out on sprouted and see if it corrects it to the real words. Right. But on separate word from sprout. On space sprouted. Sometimes I am not in my cart through the aisle. So that's good.

You're supposed to push it, not ride in it. So happy for you there. Maybe a larger store to make adequate aisles. Somebody started drinking at the beginning of this, and then it really hit. They had edibles, James, and it fucking smashed them, right? The first sentence. That's the first sentence.

First sentence is great. Yeah. I like that the store in Hardin is easy to find, good parking, terrific. Holy shit, that was more milligrams than I thought. And then it all falls apart from there. They started drinking Ropitussin in sentence two. Maybe I shouldn't have eaten the second one before the first one hit.

My God. I shouldn't have had so much cough syrup in between right after to wash it down. God damn it, both those were 10s. I'm in trouble. This has nothing to do with the town. Yeah. It's all about the grocery store, which they have edibles, so they don't need the grocery store. It's fine. Holy balls store, which they have edibles, so they don't need the grocery store. That's fine.

Holy balls. So here's two stars. Although we have several sheriffs as well as BIA officers around, there is a lot of drug activity here. How much drug activity could there possibly be? Generally, I feel somewhat safe. Yeah, probably. Because I'm not involved with the drug activity. And most of the crimes that occur have to deal with those individuals.

The surrounding reservations have been trying to enforce curfews and extra efforts to reduce the drug use in their areas. But unfortunately, it seems that even when a drug bust occurs, the perpetrators are back out on the streets in no time at all. OK. a drug bust occurs. The perpetrators are back out on the streets in no time at all. Okay. How many drugs? There aren't many violent crimes that occur, but you learn who looks safe and who you want to avoid, even just when going to the gas station or out for a drink. What is happening in this town? Population, 113.

Who are you eyeballing? You know everybody here. Who are you eyeballing? Yeah, you know everybody here who are you eyeballing yeah questionable looking folks you know them there's 113 people here for christ's sake holy shit way more males than females which is odd it's 57 and a half percent male which is the most out of whack i've ever seen here that's a lot yeah i think because a lot it's it's a lot of like uh like what am i forestry people and i don't know if that's a lot of like forestry people. I don't know if that's more attractive to male.

I don't know what it is. A lot of like fishing guides and woodsmen. Nobody likes to say it, but the very physical body demanding jobs are typically dominated by men. Yeah, and the woods in Montana maybe too is a little more. Yeah, it's a different deal. I don't know why nobody likes to say that, but they't no it's just that's who that's who works there I mean we're obvious that's why there's 57 percent are guys here yeah 61 uh is the median age here so okay old men yeah it's a town full of old men old hard men old hard men it listen to these, this is crazy. 27% of the people are between 60 and 64.

23.5% are between the ages of 75 and 84. Dear Christ. There are zero people from the age of 18 to 24 in this town. Nobody. Not one. Nobody. Nothing here. There's a couple of kids because there's a few people that are 35 to 44.

And so there's a couple of small children and their grandparents few people that are 35 to 44 and so there's a couple of small children and their grandparents that's the only people that live here very very weird town zero point i don't know how this is true but in fort smith the stats are fascinating 0.0 percent are married here what how is that possible 25.6 percent are divorced though so they've tried it just no one here has wanted to stick with it been married but nobody is anymore this town will break you is what that says it will break your marriage um 100 are single with children so everyone in this town has sired offspring every single person and said, fuck this marriage.

So that's wild. Race in this town, it's only two. It is 87% white and 13% Native American. Is that right? That is it. Yeah, that's Montana. Fascinating. White and Native American.

That's all you're going to get. Religion in this town 66 are religious i guess you can see so much sky they're like yeah it must be heaven up there somewhere somewhere up in them clouds well you get a good view of the lord above with how big the sky is very 40.3 percent are catholic i wouldn't imagine right it's very small. I don't understand. Whatever. Who knows? But either way, Catholics are the Baptists of the big sky country. I don't know. Of the wheat. Of the wheat.

The wheat belt. So 0.0% Jewish, as you might imagine, in the middle of Montana. In Bighorn County, 52% of the people voted Democratic in the last presidential election, 46% 1.9 percent independent so yeah interesting place just it's a confuses it's a very yeah it's the most confusing place i've ever heard of every single person not one married person there's not one answer you could guess and guess it gets accurate none of it makes sense it's the weirdest thing and there's 113 people but you gotta eyeball people at the gas station what are you talking about so um the unemployment rate here is high it's nine percent which i don't know how it wouldn't be what the hell is there to do

here the average meet the median household income here is 15 536 which is as low as we've seen that right there's why nobody's married because because how are you going to be married and then have conversations about money every goddamn day? That's old people on Social Security, on fixed incomes, and also the reservation, 13% Native American from the reservation is also going to be a poorer demographic. So it's going to be low. The median household income in the rest of the country is $54,000 here. Cost of living, 100 being average regular.

Here it's 72. Oh, that doesn't make any sense. Should be seven. Four. Median home cost, $94,200 though. Still, 15 grand a year. That's rough still. This is terrible maybe you are you

don't care about any of that you're interested in the sky if you want more sky we have for you the fort smith montana real estate report your average two-bedroom rental here is about $667, which is about half the national average. I don't imagine there's many two-bedroom rentals in the area, though. Why would you need a second room? It's what I mean. No one is married. But they all have kids, so you know what?

Maybe not. Here's a two-bedroom, one square foot trailer yeah the pictures it looks like whoever took them was maybe drunk i'm not sure maybe it's the the guy who wrote that review possible yeah on edibles and robitussin i'm not sure but the pictures are all like crooked and look like they were taken on a flip phone from 2004 doesn't look great and there's only pictures of the outside which is always a good sign. I don't want you to see the inside. Come by if you're interested. I'm sure the inside's not

rotted to nothing. Good news, there's a foundation under the trailer. Bad news, it's plywood. So I don't think that's very good either. $70,000 for this little gem. That sucks. That's a little bad. Here's a five-bedroom, four-bath,

1,312-square-foot house. Five bedrooms and 1,300 square feet is ambitious. I don't know how you do that. Maybe say five rooms, not bedrooms. There's no way there's five bedrooms. It's a three-bedroom and they split. I don't know what the hell they did there,

but either way, it's a trailer with a house and and a trailer but they're they're like six inches away from each other it's the weirdest thing they both look the same only one's a house and one's a trailer and they're like you could almost knock a wall out and make a like a bridge to the other one but it's not there it's very strange this place i don't even know what the hell's going on here uh they say it's $179,000 for this little piece of heaven, though. And it's around a bunch of other weird houses and trailers, and it's all gravel. Everybody's driveway's gravel.

It's a lot of gravel. I don't like it. Why didn't they just build onto the house? Yeah, it's like they tried to build on the house, and they're like, well, that'll cost a lot more. Or they upgraded their trailer. I'm not sure. Here is a four-bedroom, four-bath, 2,000-square-foot house. It's kind of like if somebody that does well in Billings, this is their weekend house where they come fishing and shit.

It looks kind of log cabin-y. Everything's wood, porch to sit on. Kind of nice. It's like a weekend house like i said but expensive though 550 000 for that thing holy shit yeah you're paying you're paying for anything nice here anything shit is there's just a lot of shit things to do little bighorn days oh yeah oh yeah they got a festival for a hundred people you know it. Everyone gather around. Come on. No, you too, Paul.

Let's go. Little Big Horde Days are four days of festivity celebrating the sights and sounds of the past with legends that surround it woven throughout the various events. Dancers from around the world dress in period costumes to attend the 1876 Grand Ball. Yeah. Don't know how to dance? No problem. Lessons are offered the evening prior to the dance well there you go award-winning local quilters display their latest creations at the local

library this is just amazing what a holy shit wrapping up the festival's events is the world famous custer's last stand reenactment drawing visitors from all over the world let's uh i suppose that's a big deal so we may as well talk about it yeah that's that's how that goes also battle of the little bighorn car show what that those don't go together mounted a musket on my pinto have a look see open car show no registration fee show is during little bighorn days event at the museum other activities that day include an 1870s infantry encampment with live fire demonstrations it's a fucking car show what are you talking about there's muskets here what are you doing and then finally come to the battle of the little bighorn reenactment baby

where uh yep it's held at the banks of the little bighorn reenactment, baby. Where is it? Yep, it's held at the banks of the Little Bighorn River where Sitting Bull's camp was between Crow Agency and Gary Owen, Montana. There we go. Hosted by the Real Bird family. The 31st annual

Battle of the Little Bighorn reenactment. It's the 147th anniversary in 2023 of Custer's Last Stand, by the way. The reenactment is located, where is this? Okay, here we go. Only here will you see Native American riders riding bareback, portraying warriors of the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Crow tribes.

No whites riding as braves, exclamation point. We do not appropriate. No fake fucking no. We're knocking no Italians or or puerto ricans up there nobody we swear i know that's what we did for century for a hundred years in movies it was just italians and puerto ricans but we're we have real fucking natives this time we swear to god so uh yeah and they're gonna have the the whole deal there so okay you can enjoy that crime it's something crime rate's pretty low in this day i mean it's a you know it's a it's something crime rate's pretty low in this state it's a small

there's only 113 people who know who's doing shit basically property crime's like a third of the national average and then violent crime murder, rape, robbery and assault of course the Mount Rushmore of crime is like a quarter of the national average it's a safe little town

you don't have to eyeball anyone at the gas station probably you can probably go about your business i would assume with little risk of uh ending up like custer i'm just going out on a limp here so it's pretty awesome that said let's talk about a murder shall we jimmy okay okay let's get into this here let's talk about a young woman first all All right? Here we go. Let's talk about Catherine Danielle Little. All right? She is born October 27, 1970. Okay.

And she grows up in Texas, in Arlington, Texas. Yikes. Her parents are Dr. Thomas and Mrs. Mary Lou Daniel. Hey, man. Yeah, that's not bad there so they come yeah she comes from a good family obviously let's just say yeah born into a yeah nice family if someone went to all the way through to be a doctor of something someone has their shit together at least no one in my family is a doctor of shit and they're living in the nice part of dallas yeah they're arlington

yeah the suburbs suburbs out there. Just out there, yeah. Yeah, not too bad here. Now, she has a brother and a sister. She's got a brother named Thomas and a sister named Sherry. Now, through this whole story, Sherry's pretty fucking awesome, by the way. Yeah, we all kind of need a Sherry sibling, I think. You'll know what I mean.

You would want to have a Sherry behind you. She seems pretty good. So she grows up in Texas, like we said, Catherine, with her siblings. And they have a pool in their backyard. And apparently she's obsessed with swimming. She loves to swim. So she's a really, really, really, really strong swimmer. And we'll talk about also in college what she gets into.

Man, the Southwest is full of them. Full of them, yeah. She's a good swimmer. So she can about also in college what she gets into she's a man the southwest is full of them full of them yeah she's a good swimmer so um she can't see for shit though she has terrible eyesight apparently from a young age yeah can't see anything without glasses or contacts from a young age damn it when did you get glasses uh eighth grade and i should have had them by like fifth grade yeah you're ignoring it for a while yeah well uh yeah but there was also i don't know if i was ignoring it as if i didn't fucking recognize it until until my teacher sat me moved me to the front of the class and then i did very i did much better and and then they were like i think he needs glasses oh glasses look at that that might help we thought he was stupid but turns out just blind as a bat.

And so I started basically learning in eighth grade, which was far too late. Which is a good explanation for the names at the end of the show. Gives a great reason why I'm not real good at things that I should have been honing skills of for the first 12 years of my life i still can see fantastic and i don't know shit also and i'm just as dumb so you shouldn't i mean you shouldn't feel bad you shouldn't feel bad is what i'm getting at maybe it's more internal at least you have an excuse yeah you should be happy with that so uh she swims a lot can't see anything she's also a really good uh horse equestrian shit horse really yeah she's good at riding horses which you have to also come from some money if you have a pool and horses that you ride all the time that's two things i never had

were pools and horses it's it's it's 50 50 though there are as many rich people that that ride horses as poor people that just use them for work not not so much in the 1970s though yeah most of your horse people there weren't a lot of sad people on on a burrow dragging their shit behind them in the by the 70s i think in the united states in other countries that's yeah riding horses is either for kings or complete peasants one or the other. There's only no in between. Kings for trash. Not for us, yeah.

That's all there is to it. A good horseback rider, it's a combination of skills there, too, because you've got to obviously know what you're doing. But there's also a human to animal relationship. Yeah, you have to be cool with the horse. You've got to figure that out. If it doesn't want you on him, it's not going to be probably pleasant to work with, I would imagine. The human-to-horse relationship is just as important as the skills of actually riding it. Sometimes, I mean, it's so fucking hard to do.

Jesus Christ. She started riding at nine, so that's a good time to start riding, I guess. Get into it. And then she continued always riding horses. She loved horses. She likes to even cook from a young age. She got into knowing how to cook and shit like that. She ends up going to SMU, Southern Methodist University, for college here.

Yeah, she graduated. She went here. She got her ba in psychology and sociology from southern methodist university and she was also captain of the polo team and a member of the crew team as well wow so yeah she can ride horses like amazingly well to be on the polo team and then she's definitely not afraid of the water if she's on the crew team also and that'll come into play later on so it's rowing yes yeah that's rowing exactly yeah so she's she does a lot you know she's a she's smart she's accomplished she you know grad gets her like degrees and she's captain of the polo team you have to have a certain to be captain of any sports team you have to be – people have to look up to you.

The leadership ability there is impressive. They look up to you. That's who the captain is. So period. There you go. So Catherine, she meets a young man while she's an undergraduate at SMU as well. So look at her. She's doing well.

She meets a young man. His name is Brian Laird, L-A-I-R-D, Laird. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again. Leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this

one and many more. Every week, hosts Erin and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied.

Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes you should tune in to our podcast morbid follow morbid on the wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts you can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining wondery plus in the wondery app or on apple podcasts um he had obtained a law degree from lewis and clark university in o That's got to be a good one, right? I assume.

I mean, they found Oregon, basically. Thanks to everybody else. Name a decent college after him, I guess. They found a way to Oregon, I should say. They didn't find Oregon. They found a route to Oregon. The team that took Lewis and Clark there. Yeah, no shit.

So there's a lot of them, too. I read their, Lewis and Clark, I read their, there's a book of their diaries that I read, and there's fucking so many people. You don't think of that. Dude, it's crazy. They romanticize it like a, right, they romanticize it like some young girl

took two dudes across the country. That's not what happened at all. It's equally impressive in the way of it was like a military movement to have all those people to be able to move in these terrible conditions is incredible. So, I mean, the skill of it is to me either way. It's very skillful. But it always sounds like two people and like a couple of ragtag guys and this young native girl, and they trudged their way up mountains. They had ships and things, and it was a huge movement, all this food and supplies and animals.

They moved the boat upstream, James. That's crazy. So this has nothing to do with Montana, but still. Fuck Lewis and Clark. Fuck you, Lewis and clark fuck both of them so he he graduated from law school and then they ended up moving to colorado catherine and brian so they got degrees he graduated from law school he's going to take you know bar exams and get licensed in whatever state he's in but still he's got his law degree

and you know she's got her degrees, and they're ready to do their stuff here. And then later they decide to move to Montana. They're like, let's move to Colorado. Yeah, we like the outdoors, but Colorado. This is Montana light. As I say, Colorado, that's all it is, Montana for bitches. You know what I mean?

Like, what are we doing? Everybody should be able to survive this we go in full montana here or what what are we are we pussies what are we doing full montana let's do this so they uh head up to montana in a lewis and clark like train up there yeah expedition to montana and uh he ends up, Brian ends up passing the bar exam in Montana. Wow. So he gets his law license. Yeah.

And he opens up a small practice in Billings, Montana. And that's where they live for a little while in Billings, Montana. They don't get married. They're together a long time. Like I said, going through from college to moving to Colorado, moving up here. They finally get married in february of 1999 fascinating so yeah they get married then and uh so you know she's almost 29 she's 28 and uh yeah he's he's i think two years older and he in july 1999 they uh they end up moving to

a trailer park in fort smith so they live in a trailer park and when you picture a trailer park in Fort Smith. So they live in a trailer park. And when you picture a trailer park, it's more like that house that I was telling you that's for sale, the trailer next to the house. It's that sort of thing. It's a lot of people that are there. They come seasonally for fishing. It's things like that. It's not West Virginia trailer park.

But you also don't picture a lawyer living in there, no? Yeah, well, he's got his practice in Billings also, so they go back and forth. And she has a couple of jobs, and he's also a fishing guide right here. So where he goes on the river here to be a fishing guide is right by their trailer. It's convenient, yeah. It's convenient, yeah. That's all it is here. And, yeah, they're building. You know what i mean they're building sure so uh they live there this the fort smith

trailer court that's what it's called and uh while they're living there he's like i said working as a fishing guide he's got a part-time law practice going and billing so okay you know he goes there for a few days during the week comes back on the weekends does his fishing stuff that's how it goes it's only an hour and a half away like like we said, so it's commutable. Now, Catherine's working several jobs. She works at the Quill Gordon Fly Fisher and the Bighorn Rover Country Lodge. My word. Yeah, and she assists in shuttling fishermen to various locations as well.

They make meals for fishermen when they come in it's it's hospitality shit is what she's doing and so july of 1999 like we said they're living in this trailer park and uh this is uh near the after bay air near the after bay area of the yellow tail dam so there's water nearby got Gotcha. Yeah. A walking trail runs from the trailer park down to the after bay area. So you can walk right to it. Beautiful. Yeah, that's nice. So they're doing all of this.

And she also, Catherine, by the way, she sets out a continental breakfast every morning for the fishing guests. Very cool. Very cool. So in the evening, she works for a woman named Tanya Warren. That's at the big river country lodge and uh that's a fishing lodge where she provides dinner there so and uh does the shuttle thing so anyway july 28th 1999 all right now katherine's not happy here no with a lot of things that are going on and especially things with Brian. She's not thrilled. They've been married five months at this point,

and it's not idyllic. But together for a long time. Yeah, together for a long time, and in different environments, too. They didn't just... Great point, yeah. When you're together and you move to different places and stay together,

you become more of a team doing that. Yeah, bond through experience so usually experience yeah could be bad experience people would be uh hate each other more for that but if you get through that and then decide to get married maybe everything's gonna work out but yeah five months into it she's unhappy though not real thrilled she talks to her mom mary lou and on july 28th 1999 gives her a call on the phone and says i think i'm going to leave brian yeah she's to that point already yeah she said um yeah i think i'm going to leave him i'm not happy on the same day she called her brother thomas and told him that she um she and brian had another fight and it's just every day with the fighting and yeah she's gonna leave him so she told her

brother and her mother i'm gonna leave brian so according to thomas she was crying and upset during the phone call and um she said she would be she's upset because she's like i don't know what he's gonna do if i leave that's gonna be a huge pain in the ass and right you know how he is he's a pain he's just not. He's a pain in the ass. I keep saying it, but that's the best way to put it. He's a pain in the ass, not somebody you want to deal with all the time on shit. He's a lawyer. You know what I'm saying?

He's great at arguing, and he brings that shit home. Yeah, and I feel like he likes to argue. He'll say later on that she likes to argue and wants to argue, but I feel like maybe he's the arguer. likes to argue and wants to argue but i feel like maybe he's the arguer i feel like just based on she makes at this point she's a psychology major who makes continental breakfasts for fishermen and he's a lawyer so i'm just not based on that who who do you think would be more argumentative i'm going with him yeah and her her her arguments are going to be based in theory and fact and uh taking things into account his is just i want it to be this way because i'm a fucking lawyer and that's what i do well and he's very particular as we'll talk about where do you hear the thing that upsets him the most it's um it's it's incredible i've never heard anything

like it before it's a it's a small town murder first let's just say that so holy shit so um yeah there she's upset and she's saying that she wants to leave and crying. Another friend of hers that worked with her at Quill Gordon's Fly Fisher, June Rose is the woman's name. She said that sometime in mid-July she had a conversation with Catherine about her marriage. And Catherine said that she needed some time off from here because she needed to go to Billings to settle some affairs. She said she told June that her marriage wasn't going very well and she wanted to end the marriage and she needed to go do some legal things in Billings. So, yeah. Another woman here, she said that she spent a lot of time with Catherine, a woman named Trish.

She said that she spent a lot of time with Catherine, a woman named Trish. And she said that she had spent time with Catherine and seen Brian in action and everything like that. She said that Brian was aggressive in nature and that he would just fly off the handle all the time. That was kind of his basic default was just to get angry and fly off the handle. And he does it in front of everybody. It's not like a private thing. He's not like a Jekyll and Hyde. Like, oh, yeah, hi, sweetheart. And they get behind closed doors.

What the fuck was going on? He'll just yell in front of everybody. He doesn't give a shit. So it's not anything he's trying to hide. So she said she had seen them arguing before. And she had even seen him, Brian, shove Catherine on several occasions. What the fuck, man?

So, yeah, not hit but shove, which is still over the line. So this Trish woman, she said she recalled an incident in the kitchen of the lodge when Brian was mad at Catherine and he called her a bitch and shoved her full on hands in the chest shove. Can't do that. After calling her a bitch. Should have stopped at bitch. He calls her a bitch in front of everybody really there is not a person out of the 113 people in town and all the trout in the fucking lake and everything else every one of them have heard brian call him call katherine a bitch at some point it's he i don't understand what the hell is happening with this asshole so that's his word, though. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Way to hear it. That's his go-to. It's for everything. It's the first thing he says. Bitch, you. It's the first thing he says to where you're like, Jesus, be creative at least if you're going to be an asshole. Yeah.

Christ. That's like his nickname for her almost. It's horrible. It's disturbing. Anytime anybody says something like that, it's clear that they're just frustrated and they've lost all form of thought. Yeah. When you resort to just dumb shit like bitch.

That's really you're just that's you're so angry and that you're just shouting shit like name. It's literally just name calling. So already lost, man. Why do you think a lawyer would have a better approach to an argument? Exactly. Like you don't get a witness on lawyer would have a better approach to an argument. Exactly. You don't get a witness on the stand and just go, liar, fucking liar. That's not the way to coax anything out of them. You're a bitch liar.

Lying bitch. Your honor, your honor. Objection, lying bitch. Right? Right, everybody? Sustained, right? I already know it. Sustained. Jerry, strike what that lying bitch just said, yeah, you didn't hear that. It's fucking crazy. So the another woman here, Constance Schumann, she worked at the Yellowstone County Courthouse and she had talked to Catherine later on. She said that Catherine had visited the clerk of the court office and was alone

and upset. And she said, Catherine wanted paperwork relating to a legal separation, not divorce paperwork. Okay. She just wanted to. Yeah. And the,

the woman, the clerk of the court here, she said that she told Catherine that Catherine would have to see an attorney because the clerk's office only has paperwork for a divorce. If you want a separation, that's like a, you know, that's some fancy shit you got to deal with with an attorney. The court, you can either get married or divorced. We have those two options. Forever or never.

That's all we got. Forever and ever and never. So July 30th, 1999. It's a Friday. And Catherine is supposed to work this morning from about 5 a.m. to about 10 a.m. at the Quill Gordon's Fly Fisher Shop. She is helping prepare breakfast for the customers and the fishermen that are here. Right. here right so uh the guy who manages the shop greg hydrich he says that katherine um he had uh

he she worked the day before and said that she said she was or she worked uh i'm sorry she works this morning on july 30th and she works from 5 to 10 a.m and said that she told him have a good day she said she was going to billings to see a lawyer because she was going to file for a separation okay that's her plan that day now there's a guy named don lyman and he's the he's a neighbor and he sees the lairds having an argument katherine and brian outside of their trailer yeah now during this argument i don't know how it started, but it's progressed to the craziest fucking argument I've ever heard in my life. And that's on this show, so it's saying something. He said that Brian was chasing Catherine around the yard. Oh, boy. Around the yard and like around the car in a circle, you know, like kids do, but not playing because every time he got close to her, he would hit her in the head with something, with an object in his hand. Couldn't tell what the object was at first, but then figured it out not only by looking at it, but by the context of what he said.

looking at it but by the context of what he said as he hit her in the head again it seemed to be a clear plastic bag full of something with a bunch of stuff in it like a ziploc bag a bigger one you know like a freezer bag what the hell is he hitting her with um then he heard her shout and i quote you bitch you burnt my fucking cookies cookies he's beating her with a bag of cookies that she is apparently yeah that she's apparently burned um so they're hard cookies so they're gonna hurt more too but and and for this obvious uh slight he public flogging with the burnt cookies with the burnt cookies in the driveway like not even I said, this isn't hidden. This is, hi, neighbors. I'm beating my wife with cookies.

And if you don't know why I'm beating her, you fucking bitch. You burned my fucking cookies. Let me explain to you. Wow. I mean, this guy, that's crazy, right? That's not normal. The response is, well, I wouldn't have eaten those anyway. And you throw them in the trash.

First of all, I like a burnt cookie. I prefer, if they're chocolate chip or peanut butter, you better put a little extra char on them for me. Especially compared to an undercooked cookie. I'll take an overcooked any day. On the underside, though, right? Not the top. Anywhere. Wherever.

Because they cook on the bottom. Yeah, on the top doesn't really. Right. So the bottom, if it's got a little char under there, I'm fine with that. I'd rather have it burn than undercooked. And I'm eating them within 10 minutes of coming out of the oven. Otherwise, the air ruins them and I'm throwing them in the trash anyway. That's the other thing.

And number two, the other problem is someone made you cookies. Like, who cares if they're overcooked? Isn't that nice? Yeah. If someone makes me anything like that, even if i don't like them i'll eat one and say they're wonderful you know what i mean because thank you for making them for me don't be a twat i'd like more cookies at another time so i'm gonna be nice about it thanks for making cookies what is he thinking number three get some milk you lazy asshole they're a little

crispy motherfuckers fucking dip them hold them under for an extra five seconds guess what you're gonna have softer cookies you jackass put them in a bowl pour milk over them you now have cookie crisp cereal homemade homemade homemade motherfucker that sounds amazing so this don lyman's guy said that he continued to chase him this wasn't one time he didn't just like hey pow he continued to chase her around and wasn't one time. He didn't just like, hey, pal. He continued to chase her around and hit her whenever he got close to her with the cookies, screaming about burning my fucking cookies, you bitch. Yeah, this is a great reason to date or marry a comedian

because we will make that fodder for the rest of our lives. Remember that time you tried to make cookies? You are not cooking this. Yeah, abso-cookie. We'll make a joke out of it, and that's the end of it. But we would never abso-cookily not chase you around and beat you with cookies. I would hope, anyway.

This just makes for a fun relationship. Whether you're a comedian or not, this is a joke. This isn't something to hurt somebody about. You don't actually hit someone with these cookies. This is crazy. Thank God she didn't make him a fucking fish no shit and she's screaming for you know ah like scared she's screaming in terror as he's chasing her screaming about cookies fuck man and then when he i guess this guy said that when when brian stopped chasing her she stopped running.

So it was like, you know, what the fuck? They just both kind of stopped. And that kind of happened. And then at that point, they both stopped. They stood there for a minute. And then Brian walked up to Catherine and she didn't run away. She stood there and was like, what are you doing? I guess he walked up calmly.

So she thought he was going to be reasonable. Right. I don't know what would make anyone think that this guy's ready to be reasonable at this point, but instead of being reasonable, he grabs her and mushes the bag of cookies into her face, again yelling about how you burned my cookies, you fucking bitch, and mushed them into her face. Is there diabetes medication in these cookies?

I don't know. Is he hypoglycemic? Is he hypoglycemic? Is this a breakdown from low blood sugar? Is this what's happening to him? Are these so fucking vital to your survival? I've never. They're cookies, bro.

Like, who fucking cares? Buy some cookies. There's a store. We heard there's a store. Buy some cookies on the way home. Chips Ahoy makes a fine product. What the hell hell is wrong with you were they made with the last batch of the thc butter what what the fuck man is that what it is get some pepperidge farms that's you'll be fine oh you'll be living and you'll be in heaven who knows they're they're always two for five at

some point at the grocery store buy them then when they're two for one that's i'll never pay full price for no fucking for pepperidge farm but two for one i'm in baby it's a milk milanos i'm getting into it those mint milanos fucking wow i'll take those regular anything but the dark chocolate i don't like that but the real chocolate milanos dark chocolate milanos are my shit i don't like dark chocolate with coffee get out town. I could see the bitters would go together. I don't drink coffee either, so there you go. Yeah, that's a good point. I guess. But I could see where you're going with that.

I like dark chocolate better than milk chocolate because the milk is far too fucking sweet. See, I find that a lighter milk chocolate, again, this has nothing to do with any of this, but I find a lighter milk chocolate is less sweet, and then the dark chocolate's not sweet at all because that's like a bitter type of thing. Yeah. You give me the milk chocolate ones, I'll mush them in your fucking face. I'll chase you around. I just hold you.

How dare you, fucking Pepperidge Farm. Pepperidge Farm remembers my ass. Here, remember this, motherfucker. And you're mashing it into an old guy from Maine's face. Pepperidge Farm remembers. I swear. God, Jesus. Never forget you, son of a bitch.

I won't forget, okay? I won't forget. Pepperidge Farm forgets. I swear. I swear. Pepperidge Farm didn't see anything. So this guy, though, has lost his fucking mind and is now mushing a bag of cookies

into his wife's face in the driveway, which is anywhere really doesn't matter. This is crazy behavior. But they I guess after this, they both went inside the trailer. They both went inside and Don Lyman heard again raised voices or a raised voice, him screaming most of the time. Yeah. For a short time. This was between three and four p.m that day july 30th so um yeah and now another guy here nick forrester

who previously worked with brian as a guide he said that he was walking with this donnie lyman guy and uh he heard the same thing he said he heard the same thing he noticed that uh they came right he saw the beginning of it he noticed they came running out of the trailer and that Catherine was in front of him and he was chasing her. And Nick Forrester stated that he was very upset and yelling and swearing at Catherine about some burnt cookies and swinging a bag of what appeared to be cookies as he chased her around a vehicle. That sounds like if that wasn't like a real thing of somebody being abusive, that sounds like if you were to write a silly comedy, that's the action part of the script is that person is very upset, yelling and swearing about some burnt cookies and swinging bag of what appeared to be cookies as he chased her around a vehicle that sounds like something well the laugh track plays yeah ridiculous and a thing like a brother and two brothers chasing each other around with swinging cookies at each other or something stupid but this is actually terribly awful and and if the guy will do it in front of people my point is i i don't even want to know what he would do behind those doors if most if that awful shit he'll do in public for fuck's sake what do you do when you're alone yeah it's like a restaurant like they'll let you see the bathroom

what do you think the kitchen's like if that's dirty you know that's the public part so katherine that evening goes to her night job about 7 30 p.m she went to the bighorn river country lodge as we all do yeah who doesn't go there at 730 on a Friday night? Sounds cozy. Yeah, it sounds like a good place to get a post-fishing meal, I guess. And her job is to provide these post-fishing meals. And Rob and Tanya Warren are the ones who own and operate the lodge. We told you about Tanya before.

And she had talked to Catherine about her marriage. Rob Warren described katherine as a just a great employee who's great with the guests and fantastic to have around and sure a real joy to behold so um she said that uh the uh that night katherine had come to work at about 7 30 and then about 8 30 p.m here comes brian into the lodge while she's at work and starts an argument with her at her job. My God. Which is, again, bonkers. I mean, this is crazy.

Nobody should ever do that. Yeah. Now, Rob Warren, the owner here, he told Brian that this isn't the right place to have an argument with your wife. If you'd like to do that, please wait until she gets home. Thank thank you and uh yeah yeah have a good one please fucking don't do that here goodbye it's gonna ruin my yelp reviews yeah this is that's all they're gonna talk about is arguing employee with her husband and yeah sure my food came on time it was delicious but it was so distracting as we know from reviews hard to digest over the word bitch 30 times yeah i don't know there was cookies.

A bag of cookies broke open. I don't know if that was like a free dessert. They don't even serve cookies. It's weird. So Tanya Warren says that Catherine called Brian that night. That's before he had come showed up. She called him at home and asked if he wanted a guide the next day for them. They needed fishing guide the next day.

And apparently they got into an argument on the phone. And then that's when they hung up. She said, well, I have to go to work. And then so he got in his car and drove there and continued the argument in person. Holy shit, which is fucking nuts. So Tanya does say that after Rob talked to him for a few minutes and calmed Brian down, and he calmed down and then he left. He was like, yeah, yeah, you're right.

This is silly. And he left, okay? So Tanya said that Catherine would assist in cleaning the kitchen and prepping lunches before she would leave every night. She usually left between about 1030 and midnight, depending on how busy they were in the cleaning process. She said that that night she left about 11 o'clock. at about 10.30 and midnight, depending on how busy they were in the cleaning process. She said that that night she left about 11 o'clock.

So that night she goes home. Now that night Kathleen and Eric Anderson, they are weekenders here. They come to the trailer and they have a trailer nearby and they live there. They go on the water on the weekends. That's their weekend gig. that's their getaway and they would vacation here and shit like that they had they had a boat in the marina there also uh but they rented a lot and stayed in there they have a dutchman rv so they stay in there in a lot and that's right by the uh they ended up uh purchasing a lot at the fort smith trailer park

and move the dutchman onto that and it's a big rv truck is what that is if you don't know like a winnebago basically it's a big camper big camper truck and um that's you know where they lived right across from a small alley from the lairds that's where their their their trailer is it's about 48 feet from there. The Laird's trailer to their RV. So that's pretty close in terms of neighbors. That's close as shit, yeah. Yeah, five basketball hoops is close in between houses.

So they stayed there, and like we said, that's where they were. Well, they overheard the Laird's arguing over the course of several weekends over the summer. Every weekend, They're like, Oh my God, the fucking neighbors are arguing again. They said they could clearly hear them arguing, uh, through the vent in the shower ceiling in their,

in their coach. They could hear it. Yeah. Because it was, we've talked about trailers and the sound, the sound doesn't stay in a trailer like it does a home at all. It's almost like a microphone, right? It's a, like it does a home. It's almost like a microphone. Right.

They're in a building. They're in another separate building and they can hear through both walls. But they're both in tin boxes. So, yeah, I feel like it's probably like it's like the can telephone theory. They're like two cans. If you put a string between them, they could fucking hear everything word for word probably. But otherwise you can just hear it anyway because your ears in a can. So I think it's that sort of deal.

So they're doing this. They overhear them arguing. Catherine took a shower close to midnight that night, so after work. And they said they could clearly hear the couple arguing and raised voices through the vent in the shower ceiling. So if you were arguing in the bathroom, would be louder everyone could hear it outside you were basically broadcasting it up through a microphone to wild the entire neighborhood so they said that they heard a male voice clearly state quote you fucking bitch over and over and over again. And a female voice that was crying repeatedly saying no, no, no the whole time. So the argument went on.

They said the whole time Catherine was in the shower. I'm sorry. The wife here, Anderson's wife, is Kathleen. So that's confusing. She was in the shower and could hear this whole thing through her shower vent. So it's the opposite. Not they were broadcasting it out this way. That was like their speaker into her.

That's exactly. That's the speaker. So if you wanted to hear shit, you went in the shower vent to hear it all come right in here. Wow. Super weird. So they said the arguing suddenly stopped. And there's that. So here is there when they're talked about questioned Kathleen says

yeah they were fighting and the description is um he was screaming or yelling at her calling her a fucking bitch and she was crying and screaming no no no and I remember their little dog barking it was one of those little dogs with a high-pitched bark. It's named Ralphie. It's 13 years old, this dog. Poor Ralphie. They said, and it was barking, and she kept yelling, no, no, no, and he just kept calling her the same name over and over and over again. He's got a pretty weak resume and reserve well reservoir of – resume and reservoir of insults.

He just always says, you fucking bitch. That's all he ever says. He can't be a good lawyer, right? He's got to lose a lot with this kind of... That's what I mean. He's got no creativity. He's got no nothing. He's terrible arguing skills.

Oh, his arguing is you fucking bitch. That's not an argument. That's a desperation Hail Mary, sir. Okay, he's an attorney. Opening arguments, the other attorney goes up, gives out a well-thought-out whole thing of the case, top to bottom. And then he comes up and says, she's a fucking bitch, and then goes and sits back down. Your client better fire you at that point. My rebuttal is, uh-uh.

Uh-uh. She's a bitch. She's a bitch. Super. I bet she cooks cookies like shit, bro. Bitch. bitch she's a bitch super i bet she cooks cookies like shit bro bitch so argument is contrary uh-uh no it didn't you fucking bitch you fucking bitch thank you very much ladies and gentlemen tap on the jerry box and you go sit down like you just really accomplished something you bring out a poster board just fucking bitch written on it with like a pointer.

Might I bring you to the attention of fucking bitch sitting over here. No way he's good at it. No way. No. So they asked Eric Anderson and he said the language was of angry words. There were the expression fucking bitch that was yelled repeatedly. There was language in resistance. There were words, no, the intensity continued to,

so, and they said, was it the male or female saying no? And he says it was the woman's voice that used the expression no. The language was used the most, the um the language was used um uh the most the hostile from the male and they said more how more of the hostile language came from the male yeah is what he's saying it's very this guy does not he's not a lawyer either i hope because he does not make a real convincing argument either here i'm gonna be honest does he like brian so much that he feels bad snitching on him this guy sounds like uh ralph macchio's original lawyer in fucking my cousin vinny the public

defender a lot of stuttering um he sounds like that guy yeah that's what we have here. I feel bad telling on him, but he did call her a fucking bitch. My wife didn't like it, so I better say what happened. Oh, shit. So they said, more of the aggressor. And he says, oh, yes, yeah, angrily, angrily, with a full male voice, not no allowed volume. Huh? Oh, my God. voice not no uh allow uh loud volume huh you want to think about that again and shoot that back to me one more time tell you what we'll just use your wife's statement she seems to be a little more eloquent in this fucking situation you must be awful at scrabble you know just or pictionary or anything well he just sees letters in a row. He's like, that's a word? I don't know.

Shit, I have no idea. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier. I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you the official Jinx podcast.

We'll be revisiting all six episodes of part one and watching along with part two as it airs on Max starting April 21st. Bye bye. The official Jinx podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly.

And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale

of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So then he said, there was a pause, and then he said, hollering.

Great. Okay, thanks, sir. Thank you. So Eric Anderson said that about 10 minutes after the yelling stopped and the screaming stopped, he heard of this uh he described the vehicle as a white or cream colored uh toyota 4runner and he pointed out that a large light mounted on a pole that provided light to the area because there was a big light on by the property so he could see everything he said that um the uh the lairds own both a white and a green colored toyota 4runners they had two of them oh his and hers that's. That's cute. That's what I mean. Very nice.

So they observed the white 4Runner leaving the trailer park at that point and then yeah, they said that they thought that they thought that that was being driven by a male. So they assumed it was Brian. And they said they

were looking out a window in the camper's kitchen. So they were spying on this whole thing is what they were doing. She took a shower. My ass. They went in the fucking shower to hear the argument through the shower vent. And then when it stopped, they looked out the fucking blinds until somebody came out and got in the car. Why can't you just say, yeah, not a lot. There isn't even a movie theater here.

There's not a lot to do. So we use this as our source of fucking nosy weird voyeuristic whatever the fuck you know watch the weird shit through the window we're super into reality television even though we're ahead of our time it's only 1999 wait for it to start i can't wait so that's that's how that goes that's what they do they look at it there now when they said um after they saw him leaving they said they were happy because now the arguing would stop and they could quote get some peace because they said every weekend it's just them arguing next door all the time they said that um

definitely brian was the aggressor and uh she you know said i wonder where he went after he left the trailer which who cares? So they said they never heard the forerunner return after it departed. And they said they didn't hear any more yelling coming from there after that. So they said that about, Jesus Christ, about 45 minutes later, the Anderson's daughter's dog, which was tied up outside, started barking loudly and became very upset there was an open area between where the dog was tethered and the walking path that led down to the after bay and the dog was barking in the open area's direction and he said it was known

to be very aggressive toward males even the male members of their own family so they assume dog they assume barking at some guy yeah i guess maybe for protection anyway maybe it's like a ball ball sicker this dog is so i i never get raped that's how this works it goes after balls of every male i encounter and it works well yeah yeah 100 success rate also fits also hates my dad so well you know you give some and you take some it doesn't have to be perfect here he doesn't trust anybody now laird he said he's supposed to be in billings the next morning to do some law work and wanted to get rest before making the trip his version he says katherine came home from work um you know a little later than normal and they got into a discussion around 11 30.

now she says that he was sleeping or he says he was sleeping and she came home from work and you know woke him up and wanted to argue he then said direct quote from him later it was during her her premenstrual period oh god so she was very tired and very grouchy. He'll repeatedly say that she was, quote, a real bitch during her premenstrual period. She says it repeatedly. He said that during this night he told her that she should quit her morning job because the money she made wasn't worth her having to wake up at 430 in the morning and be so tired all the time. She got up at 430 to go to work and now it's 11 30 and she just got home from her other job so it's not a lot of time to sleep and do

anything so then you're gonna get a period too for christ's sake good god woman now you're bleeding fuck no setting yourself up to be stretched thin no wonder why you're burning cookies jesus christ for all this work and you bleed for fuck's sake you gotta be lightheaded that's why no wonder you just forgot they were in there you're bleeding out that's what's happening are you okay good maybe that isn't working let's get like a t-shirt up there or something men really do not understand no we have no idea what's going on no idea no one teaches us no one tells us it's just shit we have to pick up from commercials and complaints over the years that we hear and we don't

ask it's not like no one it's not a secret i'm sure if you ask they'll tell you but probably yeah we just are like i don't know that sounds terrible and we just go on with our day that sounds awful it's kind of shitty really sorry about that i'll go pick up anything you need me to get that's all yeah yeah i don't understand that whole thing of i won't pick up products of the fuck what do they give a shit i used to always pick them up for my daughter and who cares what i'm afraid they think it's for me what do i yeah i'm getting my period right now i don't care you say that i'll go yes i'm right it's a heavy flow day give me my fucking change i gotta get out of here my dick is so big

i can jam these through the tip of it are you that's how it is ready for more information it's a heavy flow i'm gonna go jam three of these up there it's in the car it's pretty heavy so you want to hurry the fuck up with the transaction there chief i don't care what is the whole the whole i can't go get those why there is a weird thing with that i don't know what it chief i don't care what is the whole the whole i can't go get those why there is a weird thing with that i don't know what it is i don't understand it i never understood it i don't care i'll fucking parade those things through yeah i'll ask hey which is this is the you know i don't give a fuck what do i care i'll buy the adult diaper they're on your shelves motherfucker what are you looking at me that like that that's the least embarrassing shit i think

you sell them you fucking weirdo plus i look like a good guy no matter what they're not for me i'm getting them for someone yeah i look like a nice guy i do if you guys single guys if you ever ever if you really want to get laid buy a bunch of female products and walk through the store with them women will think you're amazing and then be like, oh, yeah, no, this is for my sister has advanced hepatitis. She's at home very ill, so I have to bring her her products. But what's your name, sweetheart? It's not contagious. It's C. Don't worry.

I don't fuck her. We don't do needle drugs together, so it's fine. She was a junkie and I brought her in. Don't worry. I don't fuck her. You just said she's your sister. Well, keep your lies straight, man. it's a 113 person town i gotta tell you i don't fuck my sister a good point yeah i mean three weeks ago we had a teenager kill 13 people over her cousin so anything's possible on

this show either way um and that's the argument he said you know that he didn't want to argue he said she quote wanted to argue about her morning job and things in general is the way he put it she just wanted to argue and he wanted to go to sleep so he said they argued for about 15 minutes and he said he quote refused to have an argument because it was a small point and it was late at night and he had to go to Billings the next day. And, of course, the you fucking bitch, you burn my cookies guy was completely reasonable, I'm sure. I'm sure he was just very reasonable and everything like that. Now, he used to, before they moved here when they just lived in Billings, he used to sleep in his car near the after bay if he had to guide the next

day. He'd wake up in the morning and get his shit out and just go right there. So he knows of that as an option. The after bay boat launch area with the parking lot is located on the river about eight-tenths of a mile from the trailer park. So walking distance, right there.

It's referred to as the after bay and after bay parking lot. So there's an overflow parking lot loaded located next to the after bay. That's they talk about. That's called the overflow lot. So we'll talk about that. Now, he said that to avoid an argument, he got in his car and drove to the spot near the after bay and went to sleep where he used to go when he would come here to guide yeah so he said that um he was driving his green toyota forerunner with a sleeping bag and went to the

after bay parking lot to sleep in his vehicle now the anderson said they saw the white car leave with him driving he says he drove his green right away there's a discrepancy there she usually drives the white one katherine and he usually drives the green one that's their considered their cars so he said he's going to sleep in his vehicle he said that he got his sleeping bag got all comfortable and next thing you know bang bang bang here comes katherine knocking on the window katherine came down there she came down there knocking on the window and she's furious um and uh that he went to sleep in his car so he told her to let him go back to sleep and she said no and said i want

to fight brought these gloves down here and everything i'd like to have a yeah i'd like to have a fight i brought judges yeah i'm gonna construct an octagon and go to town here but she wanted to argue apparently is what he said town here. But no, she wanted to argue, apparently, is what he said. She told him that she wanted a fight. And he told her, he says that he told her to go home. And she said, well, why don't you go home? And they kept telling each other to go home back and forth. This is a mature, literally, why don't you go home?

Why don't you go home? Why don't you go home first? Well, you came down here after me. Why don't you leave then i'll leave so they're literally arguing about that he claims that eventually she got in her car and fucking jammed it on out of there high rate of speed pissed off took out of the took off out of the parking lot and um he said that he returned to the trailer after that. He got in, drove his car to the trailer, and said that her car wasn't there when he got home at the trailer. So he said that he laid down on the couch for about 15 minutes, started to doze off, and boom, Catherine burst through the door. Here she is. Yelling and screaming and wanting to fight more.

Okay, that's his claim. So she just, in all this time, she stayed at a fucking eight. She just somehow is just that angry. She drove around for a half hour, still can't even process it. Yeah, I do not believe in any of this shit. So he said, she's yelling. He said that she got in there and was going all around the trailer, slamming drawers and doors and banging shit. You know the sound of an angry woman in the house.

You know that sound. That's the sound. Looking for a comment after any movement I make. So he said that he told her at that point that, know you're pmsing right now oh god why don't you calm down so he he crossed two bridges there that you probably shouldn't cross in this situation of it's just your period yeah calm down which are two things that women love to hear about the fact 30 you should be able to handle this by now yeah there's a whole thing and yeah this is this isn't great no i'm not going and

getting you tampons this is all that's what he said he said to her and he said what's your fucking problem man like you know what's your deal he's yelling at her and uh he said that he told her to settle down and what the fuck man so. So he said that she exited the trailer, slamming the door behind her. I'm not going to calm down. This is very out of character behavior for her, by the way, especially if she,

if someone's chasing you around, hitting you with cookies, 12 hours earlier, eight hours earlier. Now you're this aggressor who's going through the house, slamming shit and banging things and fuck you, buddy. And yeah, it seems that now you've've had enough i don't know about this so it's only the lady that

makes the continental breakfast i know that's what i mean and cookies for you uh burnt or not so uh he said that she slammed the door and um there's that and uh it was about 1 30 a.m when she drove off in the white 4Runner. He said he laid back down on the sofa, figuring she'd come home after she cooled off. She had to go drive around. And he said he fell asleep on the sofa. And that was it. Said she would never, she wouldn't say what was wrong the whole time.

Just kept slamming things, digging around drawers, and then slamming them. He said she was acting like a mad woman. And before she left and slammed the door, she said, take carealphie and then left ralphie's the dog yeah take care of our 13 year old dog take care of the dog and he just said he shrugged and you know fell asleep and that was that so all good the next morning july 31st 1999 he is awoken by the phone ringing. The phone had rang apparently a few minutes earlier. Nobody answered. And then this time he answers groggily, of course.

Hello. It is the Hydrich guy, her boss at her morning job. And he said, is something wrong with Catherine? And Brian responded, no, she's at work yeah and he said well no she's not at work and um you know then uh he said okay well I don't know she's not here I don't know where she is so they hung up the her boss there Heydrich called his girlfriend and said will you help me set out the breakfast since Catherine didn't show up? And she said yes. So this Hydra's guy went to drive and pick his girlfriend up to help out, right?

As he's leaving, he picks her up. And then as he drives back there about 6.30 or 7 in the morning, he said he saw Laird driving away from the after bay toward his trailer. So he apparently had driven there and back now. Okay. So he apparently had driven down there and back now. So he said that this was about 640 a.m. is when he saw this. He said that, yeah, that's how that went. So, yeah, they're talking about the whole deal.

And so Tanya Warren now, 750 a.m., her other boss, Tanya Warren was sleeping in bed when that morning there's a knock on the door. Okay. There, knock on the door, and it's Brian. He is, well, he's not at the door because by the time Warren got out of bed, Brian was already standing in her kitchen. Oh. Which is very aggressive yeah 7 50 in the morning and he tells her that um i need to you have to do something you have to help me here apparently he said that he went to the after bay parking lot where he had been the night before

where they saw him leaving and he said that he found uh katherine's car there it was there he said the doors to the vehicle were unlocked and the keys were in the vehicle in plain sight along with her purse he said and he also said he could see a bottle of tequila on the passenger side floorboard okay so he's like i don't know i'm worried about that he he said that uh maybe katherine you know went for a hike or went for a walk and got hurt and maybe she's like has a twisted ankle somewhere in the woods i don't know because people yeah people go for hikes at 1 a.m right that's normal pitch black with tequila yeah it's what i get shit-faced and stumble around a rocky a rocky cliff front with no in pitch black fucking middle of the night conditions that's what i do i

don't know about juju i like to live on the edge a little bit and i feel like me and katherine she gets me you know what i mean yeah say yeah burnt cookies fucking midnight things it's all good holy shit so he uh he said that he looked around couldn't find her there so that's when he went to tanya warren's. And he said, is Catherine here? Maybe she walked over here. And Tanya Warren said, no, I was sleeping. If she is here, I didn't know about it. He said that Catherine's job called me this morning, said she didn't show up.

So I'm out looking for her. And she said, I don't know where he is. And so he left immediately. She began to prepare breakfast for the fishing guests. And then she said more. She began to prepare breakfast for the fishing guests. And then she said the more she thought about it, she got worried and called Brian back to see if he found Catherine. He said no, but, you know, I know where her car is, basically. That's all I got.

So Tanya finishes serving breakfast and then calls Brian for an update. He said, still missing. Still gone. for an update he said still missing you know still gone so tanya decided to go look for katherine and drove over to brian's and katherine's trailer where she found brian sitting in the rocking chair on the porch as you do when your wife is missing that's his that's his uh deep deep ground cover search is sitting on a rocking chair well i figure if i rock here long enough she'll turn up i mean what the hell are you doing well that's a that's a man who's been married long enough and he knows that a man relaxing is a woman's worst thing to see he's like i'll just do that she'll come running

and yelling at me now he's just sitting there eating fucking cookies eating burnt cookies eating cookies somebody else made them. Yeah, right? So that's what he's doing. He said that when, you know, he told her the whole deal. He said she took a shower. She initiated an argument with me. That's how it went. So she said he was screaming about all this.

He said during this whole thing, he told Tanya, quote, you know, how, you know, Catherine has a violent temper. She likes to throw things when she gets mad. So violent temper who throws things. No one else knows that. He just said that. And he told her as the argument progressed, he told her he was going to sleep. He got in the car. He told her the whole story.

He said that after all this, he said that Catherine, when she was rummaging around, she had turned down their pictures you know face down and took 30 off the counter and then left the house slamming the door and now he says to her though before he said just take care of ralphie now he adds that she said quote i'm going to kill myself take care of ralphie and left gonna kill myself now bye yeah it's another thing people do all the time we often announce it we announce it i'm going to kill myself now take care of ralphie goodbye and then she leaves and and what goes into the woods and just waits to be taken by the elements what are you talking about the point of it is that we don't want you to stop us. Yeah. That's not a thing. We're going to be sneaky about it.

Now, Tanya Warren said she got in Brian's car and the two of them began to search for Catherine. They drove to Catherine's car. Tanya Warren got out of the car and approached the car. She opened the door and saw the purse and the keys. After she looked in the car, she went back brian and asked him if he was going to get get out are you going to get out and help me like look for her maybe you're just going to hang out in the car so uh the evidence that you've already seen and oh yeah there it is let's go i just wanted to show you so she said uh she did notice while when she got there she noticed two males

two guys uh fishing along the shoreline of the after bay. And a couple was parked very close by. And another couple was sitting on the shoreline of the after bay. And after entering the parking lot, he had said to her, oh, there are cars here. There are other people here. And that's when he said, oh, well, maybe somebody took her. And then they what stuffed her in the trunk and then set up their fishing gear and tried to catch some trout before

they left for the day can't it's an odd feed this one oh jesus christ so um tanya said that he looked all there he she saw everything else the the purse the keys the bottle of tequila she saw it all basically so she looked through there they continued to search and uh a short time later tanya said well why don't we go back to the after bay and see if maybe katherine walked back to where her car was maybe she's out for who the fuck knows where she is so they laird got out of his car and walked around she said that he was slowly dragging his feet not putting much effort into any type of searching, really. She said they decided to look somewhere else, and when Tanya asked Brian if they should lock Catherine's car to protect her purse,

he said that they shouldn't because Catherine wouldn't be able to get into the car when she came back there. Yeah, she's going to be right back, obviously. She left her keys there. So Tanya said that, indicated that upon returning to the 4Runner when they got back to get in their car, he told her, I'm going to get my fishing rods. Out of the car? Out of her car.

He's got his fishing poles in there. Going to need those. So he slid open the window, there's a slide window I guess. Yeah, on the back. Yeah, on the back. Opened that to remove his fishing rods there made no attempt to get her purse or wallet or any of the other personal belongings that she had

he left the vehicle unlocked and they went back to his trailer okay so they went back there um and when they got they ended up going back out and searching more okay after all this so um they get out in a different parking area. Now they go to the overflow lot there. And Tanya's yelling out Catherine's name. Catherine screaming all around like she's sitting off in the side. Oh, I'm over here. So while Brian is just doing it the same thing, shuffling around.

She said shuffling around, repeating Catherine's name quietly is the way she put it. Just like, Catherine. Come on home, Catherine. Come on, Catherine. Where are you? Catherine. Are you here? Hey, Catherine.

Catherine. Here, Catherine. Catherine. Catherine. I don't see her. That's basically what he's doing. He shouting i haven't found her louder than he's shouting katherine can't find her katherine so they went back to his trailer where he finally at her insistence called 9-1-1 yeah i was going to say what i haven't heard yet is is one one

moment where they're like should we call the cops hey should we call for help on this? No, I'm sure we'll find her. It's good. I mean, I don't understand it. So they do that. Now, Tanya said that she noticed that all of the she described Brian as angry and worried at this point, which is also reasonable if she was just missing or whatever. Also noticed that all the photographs in the trailer had been turned down as well. So somebody did that. He called 911, and Tanya walked outside the trailer and started asking anyone around, walking around, have you seen Catherine? Have you seen Catherine? Everybody knows her.

And they said no. So Tanya started to think of everything, of where they could search. And she said, well, we didn't search the one, the far end of the overflow parking lot. We didn't really go down there. You know what I mean? We should search that area and see what's going on. So she gets in and they're driving over a bridge

and Tanya Warren stops her car and looks over toward the overflow parking lot. From there, she could see something floating on the surface of the water. Oh, what? She said it looked like some sort of air bubble floating on the surface of the water. Like, it was weird.

It just looked like an orb or a bubble or something. So she drove down to the overflow parking lot where she could clearly see Catherine's body floating face down in the water. Oh, my God. Yeah. So she freaked out, realizing it was Catherine, and she drove to her friend's house, the closest place, and called 911.

Nobody's got a cell phone here. So she freaks out, obviously. They call 911. Then Tanya gets in the car and drives back to Brian's trailer to say, hey, holy shit. trailer to say hey you know holy shit it's at that point that uh the i guess the deputy there's already a deputy there and he talks to brian and brian told him that he and katherine got into an argument the whole deal she left he woke up at six looking for katherine been looking for katherine blah blah blah tanya arrives at the trailer and uh she said she pops in the door boom i think i found katherine's body floating in the

river so they're like holy shit that's some uh that's some shit she said i think she's in the water but by the first parking lot in the after bay so she said she didn't give didn't give it's all she said uh she just said that uh by the first parking lot in the after bay and at that point brian jumped out of his seat and hopped into his SUV and tore ass out of the trailer without Tanya and the cop, just took off. So Tanya and the deputy got in their separate cars and followed. This is terrible.

Hey, no, you come with me. I'll go with you. I'll take care of it. I'm going to do this badge stuff, and then you come with if you want. See, this thing on my shoulder, I could call guys. They'll be there in two minutes. They'll be here.

It's probably better. So he takes off. As he did, they follow, like we said. He arrives in the overflow parking lot, and the after bay is shallow and the shoreline is rocky. Laird is – Brian is pullingatherine's body out of the water no they get there he's pulling it out and wailing and crying okay oh my god oh katherine now he's screaming and he's you know pulling her lifeless body and hello god touching the body you oh yeah fucking it all up getting everything all over him. And the officers had to physically remove him from her body to say,

it's a fucking crime scene, you asshole. You can't do this. So Catherine was wearing gray sweatpants, which were like kind of half down a little bit, but with water you don't know what that meant. She's wearing a bra and a button-up shirt with only one or two of the buttons buttoned at the top. She also had on earrings,

a ring, and a wristwatch as well. She wasn't wearing socks or shoes and wasn't wearing contact lenses and had no glasses on her as well. And she can't see, so she's going to be driving around? She's out there driving around and hiking in the middle. Remember we said a nice rocky yeah middle of the night no moon hike well add no shoes and no way to see

anything even though it's dark she said well it's dark anyway who needs to see and evidently drink a a fifth of tequila while she can't see either way well i'm gonna i'm gonna take my shoes off so i can feel the earth with my feet and that way i'll I'll be more connected to it and I won't fall, even though it's dark and I'm blind and drunk. Yeah, that's his story here. Wow. So the injuries, we'll pause from this scene. Imagine he's Catherine and they're pulling him off. No, my darling.

I love burnt cookies. He's going through the whole deal. I love burnt cookies. He's going through the whole deal. Now, the coroner shows up and responds to this, and he brings the body to the mortuary, and they have a Dr. Mueller here. And Dr. Mueller performs the autopsy, and first they drew her blood for toxicology and all that sort of thing. so they said that the uh they said the embalming may cause bruises to become darker or more prominent but will not appear may not make them appear larger so if there's bruises they could appear different but not bigger so the the coroner while he's taking blood notices bruises on her

hands right thigh arms and the top of her feet. Okay. Now, also, when they get into it, there are bruises in the neck muscles, both right and left side here. Wow. Sternocleidomastoids. That's the actual where there's bruising. It's basically from the front of your neck here and then in the back of the neck as well, there's another part that is bruised. That's a two-handed something or other.

Like if, you know, somebody choked you with both hands there. Focal hemorrhage on the subcutaneous fat of the neck. Recent bruises of the left elbow, right forearm, upper back, right lateral thigh. Older blunt force injury to left thumb. So, to get into this now, while Dr. Mueller was observing the bruises around the neck, he described them as troubling, very troubling as he was doing it. There was an FBI agent there during the autopsy that was there to document this.

And they got another forensic pathologist in there, and they wanted to look at her more. And they said, internally, the neck bruises overlaid prominent dark red-violet fresh bruising into both the sternocleidomastoid muscles, which, in my opinion, was clearly real and premortem. So somebody bruised her neck before she died is what they're saying here. So here's the whole report.

Multiple bruises were seen over her forearms and over her thighs, and these areas were sampled. In addition, we saw an intact skin over her upper back, but deeper bruises were found upon dissection through the midline of her back. Internally, the neck bruises overlaid prominent dark red fresh bruising into both the sternocleidomastoid muscles, which in my opinion was clearly real and premortem. Additionally, additional bruising was seen in the small paravertebral muscles

on the right cervical region, not on the left. In addition, some subcutaneous bruising was seen in the subcutaneous fat immediately beneath the ring-shaped red discolorations on the front sides of her neck anybody who knows medical shit is gonna go out this is really interesting otherwise maybe fast forward 15 seconds the neck is pretty pretty beat up yeah in the midline of her upper back and mid-back there was an an up to two inch or so diameter area of prominent subcutaneous fat bruising. No other bruises seen over her back as the tissues were opened and examined laterally to the mid scalpular regions. And from her shoulders down to just above was above her was its line. In my opinion, these areas of bruising were real, but in and of themselves do not appear to be significant enough to explain her death. Like she didn't get hit by a car.

She took a blow to the back, but we don't know. Yeah. They said, in my opinion, the bruises identified are significant factors and warrant inclusion on the death certificate under the other significant condition heading so um now that's what's going on here they also um they said that no one that had seen her in the last over the course of the day which was a shitload of people from two different jobs saw any bruises anywhere on her at all now so they were awful when you get murdered how they have to really take apart your body so deeply it's so horrible it's not even if you get murdered it's just if you if you

die and you're not like 83 and have heart problems yeah any other questionable circumstance so it's fucking gross it really is man it's horrible to think about but it is it's everybody who's not an obvious you know thing there so they said uh pursuant to the autopsy blood and urine samples were taken from katherine laird and the toxicology report from the crime lab detected uh it's she's got she's on antidepressants it's amitripet jesus these medical words today uh amitriptyline is uh and and nortriptyline are in her system. They're determined to be at a therapeutic level. She takes antidepressants.

That's all. She didn't take a whole bottle of them or anything. How much tequila? Well, we'll get to that here. They said that that wouldn't have rendered her any sort of fucked up or anything, these pills at all. And they found out that she had been prescribed this drug which was an antidepressant

that she was taking at the time of her death they also found that she had her blood alcohol level is 0.000 not a drop not a fucking drop of alcohol in her system I mean a fresh you know mostly drank bottle

of tequila on the floor but none of it's in her apparently so uh none there and uh they said they they mark the on the death certificate death certificate the immediate cause of death as asphyxia by drowning and their manner of death though under manner of death could not be determined so if you're a medical examiner you're not a detective you just look at this and you go she died from drowning right there are also bruises that might go there but that's not their job to put that together with a crime their job is to go this is how the person's dead so yeah yeah if you're a cop you can look at that and or you know i cannot say that cannot say that this is an accidental drowning.

I will tell you this. She drowned. That's fucked up, too, because, oh, that means, oh, man, that's so horrible. That's the worst. Between drowning and fire, who fucking knows? But they're both equally goddamn awful. But what happened here, if it's pretty goddamn obvious to cause the yeah seems like it allegedly the bruising around the neck and everything that she's held underwater by her neck is what it seems

like so she was drowned she's a really strong swimmer so i feel like that's how this would have to go and if it's a rocky area that would explain bruising everywhere else fighting her to get her in there all right all of that or choked to unconscious and tossed in there and no way yeah face down yeah yeah um so the uh wow that's that's fucking crazy so um he came in and um they said they asked the uh they were asking the medical people the cops were if she could have fallen down from being intoxicated because the husband kept talking about this tequila and they said no not at all um she has no alcohol in her system and there's and she said he said even if she was intoxicated which we found no intoxicants in her even that these bruising is are not in areas of the body that are normally you'd find from a fall

you'd find knees elbows you know things that you try to protect yourself in areas of the body that are normally you'd find from a fall. You'd find knees, elbows, you know, things that you try to protect yourself in a fall, the palm, you know, the base of your hand, things like that. No, none of this. This is shit. This is a choke. You don't fall and get choked. You don't fall into a chokehold. That's not what happens.

So it's pretty fucking interesting. So now back to the scene while this is all going on. They're pulling him off of her wet body as he tries to pull poor Catherine out of the water. So, um, the FBI comes in pretty quickly because this is a, this is a small town.

Even the County isn't much better at this type of thing. They're not death investigation. Isn't really what they do, but because of the reservation nearby, there are FBI people around here. Okay. So here okay so um uh i don't know why but they would be there for that but that seems to be a thing that happens all the time so the fbi agent an agent jackson arrives on the scene and he noticed that there's a all sorts of different law enforcement agencies there there's cops from all there's a game and fish guy there There's a county guy. There's town of this. There's every cop you can imagine from the area. They're all

jerking each other off in the middle of everything. And, um, the FBI agent took the lead because he's like, you people are, you investigate like someone caught more than their limit. We're going to fucking, we're going to take this over. The trout police can take a seat. Yeah. There's a guy with his finger in a jelly donut. What are we doing here? Yeah. He's literally, that's how he's eating it. He's holding it like it's, that's his lollipop stick is his finger.

And he's just eating it. It's not cool. He's going to bite his finger off too. I don't trust this guy. This is how I keep it from getting all over my thumb. That way only one finger gets dirty. that way only one finger gets dirty so uh he spoke uh brian spoke with agent jackson about the events that transpired talk tells the fbi guy the story same shit got home from work argument drove away don't know what happened

she came back wanting more slamming shit blah blah, blah, blah. So, you know, tells him the whole story. And he then says at one point he's talking to Tanya Warren and he says, I'm bad. I'm bad. I should have not. I should. I never should have left her. That's what he said. So that's what he was saying there.

I'm bad. I'm bad. I should never left her. A while later, Tanya Warren and her husband drove husband drove Brian to the hospital to help him calm down. He said he was freaking out. They dropped him off at the hospital. They just slowed down. They were like, bye.

Get out. Tell him you're not feeling good and just pushed him and kept driving. Later on, though, they returned to pick him up. He said that there wasn't any doctor available to see him and and he didn't want to wait for one to come in. So he'll be good. He's good. So he said on the way back to Fort Smith, Brian stopped the car so he could ask them to stop the car so he can use the restroom. And he used the restroom.

And when he got back to the car, he's there with Tanya and her husband. And he says, so what do you guys think? What are my chances they were like right what are you talking about i mean i hit her with cookies a day before shit doesn't look good you know what i mean um so they were like i don't know they said that he did not appear to upset at all by that point like going the act of going to the hospital cured him didn't have to actually be seen by anybody just the waiting room just made this yeah that's all it is so they dropped him off at his trailer and that was that that afternoon brian is the one that has to call the police don't notify the family he has to notify that he's the

family they notify so he has to notify her mom and all that so he calls mary lou and tells her hey you know there's such yeah but what he said it would end up happening he left a message on her answering machine what did he say on an answering machine saying something horrible has happened imagine getting that message oh god why would you do that good lord let me give you five heart attacks before I give you another ten. What the fuck? We don't know that he killed her. Something horrible's happened, Click. However, that's not how you do it.

No, this is fucking crazy. That's wild. And then she called back, and she said, yeah. And he told her, yeah, Catherine's dead. She drowned. And, you know, that's that. And Mary Lou, when she talked to the cop, she was saying that Catherine's like an accomplished swimmer. She's a really good swimmer.

And that's pretty crazy that she would drown. And Brian told her that she had a bottle of tequila in there. I don't know where it came from. But I also told the mother I found a bottle of sleeping pills in the vehicle don't know where it came from um but i also told the mother i found a bottle of sleeping pills in the vehicle as well which isn't true but that's what he told the mother now the mother and katherine's sister sherry are pretty much at the airport on a plane to montana right like as we yeah as this is going on there's plane tickets being booked here they get to at into billings at 2 a.m on august

1st that's how goddamn fast they got there next flight out we're there um they went there and um they made their way to fort smith the next morning and they were fucking there so they show up at brian's trailer mary lou and sherry okay and uh they show up at the trailer and they notice there's a pair of jeans that are wet from the knee down in the hanging over the bathtub. Knee down. Okay. Hang in there. Now, Mary Lou also notices a second pair of totally wet jeans that were on the hallway floor. She picked them up. They were just a pair of wet jeans

bunched up on the hallway floor in a pile. So she picked them up and said, you're going to do something with these. You're going to get mildew in them. It's wet jeans. You can't do that. And apparently Brian grabbed the jeans out of Mary Lou's hands and told her to put those down right now and said, those

were the jeans I was wearing when I pulled Catherine's body out of the water. Okay. And she was like, okay. But then he had another pair wet from the knee down hanging over the bathtub. Yeah. Which is odd. So, um, yeah, the next day they were at the trailer again, Mary Lou was there and she noticed again that pair of jeans in the bathtub.

So she was like, this is fucking weird. Very strange. And why is there two wet pairs of jeans? You know what I mean? That's a new one. So Mary Lou, at that point, too, he tells Mary Lou, yeah, I'm going to cremate Catherine real quick here. And Mary Lou said, no, I'm taking I'll take her back to Texas and we'll have a funeral for her not going to cremate her up here we have a family and all that

stuff and he angrily insisted on cremation Mary Lou had to hire an attorney to get a court order to block it stop it wow so she could and she ended up getting control of it and ended up having a funeral for Catherine in Texas without cremation and you know they later

arrest there with the rest of her family. Very nice. So anyway, Brian Laird leaves Montana within a week. Done. Fuck this place. Takes off. Yeah. He has a law practice in Billings.

Gone. Just takes off. Yeah. Doesn't even do shit. Just takes off. Now, the investigation, which that doesn't look suspicious or anything it's not good it's not good at the same time you'd say well i i don't want all the memories or whatever but it also criminals run away you know what i mean welcome

to the small town of chinook where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper in this new thriller available exclusively on Wondery+, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for

possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars Kelly Marie Tran Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts so it's just weird um so the agent Jackson here with the FBI he continues to investigate all this shit and he's seeking out witnesses and everything like that who he doesn't speak to are the andersons uh they're the they heard the

fighting that night the you fucking bitch no no no fight they never talked to them yeah this fbi agent never talks to them on august 2nd they uh execute a search warrant on Brian's trailer and they recalled seeing a wet-looking pair of jeans in the hallway and Agent Jackson seized a pair of jeans that were hanging on the side of the bathtub. And on August 6th, Agent Jackson received a note from Ranger Ryan.

A ranger named Ryan. So, the note read quote, Josh Anderson who works at the marina stated that his parents, Eric and Kathleen Anderson, heard an argument go on at trailer number nine the night of July 30th. The Andersons live right across the alley on B Street in the trailer court. So, yeah, and it provided the Andersons phone numbers both in and out of town. Yeah. Okay.

He, Agent Jackson, enclosed the note in the envelope and put it in the case file that's it that's it that's what he did with it he never fucking talked to them again man ranger ryan ranger ryan passed it on the fbi took over the investigation ranger ryan passed it on he said okay very nice yeah put it in an envelope and forgot about it. What the fuck? Real nice. So this Agent Jackson, that's what he did. And they don't talk to, so they talk to the Andersons on the day after Ranger Ryan talks to them. And they won't be talked to again until 2012. Oh my God.

Give them a 12-year break before we have to make them recount this shit yeah and nothing happens brian's gone there's a quote investigation he gave his story of she came home we fought slamming shit around putting pictures down 30 bucks took off tequila i saw i don't know what the fuck happened and they went well i mean that's i don't know we'll investigate it well that he takes off a pondry well we'll be here it all settles i mean to the point of three months later her sister sherry has to put she puts in the fort worth newspaper puts a big thing out saying it's only been three months and someone took your life so she's right away saying this is what i mean why you need a sibling like this yeah she's like not she's not taking this oh i could have been an accident bullshit she said someone took your life i feel like it's been

forever i tried hard to focus on what a wonderful person you are and not how the end happened and it goes on it's very um it's heartbroken obviously it's just a heartbroken uh heartbroken person missing her sister here so the fbi has total control over it at this point they take it over um they're talking about you know park rangers and all this type of shit so because originally that's who was involved it was park rangers who are on the case at first fucking hell so the fbi here they put out an ad in the newspaper pretty much all over the country ten thousand dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for the death of katherine little laird um please contact randy

randy jackson with the fbi yeah this is uh this is pre-american idol you know he fucked this case up needed a new gig. It's a no from me, dog. It's a no from me, dog. I don't think I have anyone to arrest. Are you going to arrest him? It's a no from me, dog. I don't think so.

I don't think I will. No. So 406-248-8487. I don't know whose number that is now, but somebody with that desk is going to be like, Randy who? Randy Jackson. All information is confidential. that is now but somebody with that desk is gonna be like randy who randy jackson all information is confidential so uh anyway uh in 2004 jackson receives a promotion and is transferred to fbi

headquarters and he's he's like bye that's it and you gotta finish this one it's a no for me dog it's a no for me dog i got plans i got plans fuck man you're gonna investigate this anymore it's a no for me dog yeah exactly it'd be a no for me dog i'm sorry man i'm sorry i just i just didn't dig it i don't just didn't like i'm not feeling it i'm just not feeling it you know i'm saying i get what she was doing this this investigation is pitchy as fuck it's this is a pitchy investigation this is what happens when like four different law enforcement agencies try to do something together you can't do that it just doesn't you get pieces of paper but stuffed in envelopes and shit because they didn't do it themselves it just doesn't work you got post- posted sticking to shit in all kinds of offices everywhere and how much do you want to bet too that some fbi agent thought you know well just

because they are more better trained and more experienced and everything else thought i don't care what this fucking ranger what the hell ranger rick over here ryan whatever ranger rick's nephew ranger ryan trying to be a big boy no i don I don't need him to fight. I don't need his investigation into this. Telling me about beaver dance. Not at all. So by April 2002, Brian Laird is where? Not jail. Colorado.

Missouri. Wow. Yeah, applying to, he's trying to practice law in Missouri. So the Missouri Board of Law Examiners, they sit him down and in order to give him a law license, they want to know more about the circumstances surrounding his wife's open death investigation. So they sit him down and put him under oath and the whole deal.

It's pretty fucking interesting. he and Catherine ever verbally argued during their marriage. He told the board, and this is on the record, a stenographer typed this out, Catherine was argumentative during her premenstrual time, is what he said. So he classified their disagreements as Catherine being argumentative with him, not the other way around.

And he said there's never been any physical confrontations at all. He described leaving, you know, leaving the trailer that night and sleeping in the after bay parking lot. He said, quote, And I said that, you know, look, it's late at night. I have to work in Billings tomorrow morning, so I'm not going to argue about this. The argument took very little time. We probably only spoke for 10 or 15 minutes. And I just refused to have an argument because it was a small point and it was late at night and i had to go to billings

oh my god so he's so reasonable isn't he it's a reasonable guy not a man who would beat his wife with a bag of cookies in the front yard those guys never do that this is one of those things no matter what that that takes over that you beat her with cookies and you're capable of anything at that point. You're not even appreciative of cookies. You're a twat. I don't want to hear from you. So then he says, quote, this is later on, when she came down to the after bay to get him, she took off and he followed. Quote, so anyway, I drive home at my normal rate of speed and I get home and she's not home. So I park my car and I go inside. Well, then I go to bed and all of a sudden, maybe 20 minutes later, she comes back me what's wrong. And she's slamming things and digging in drawers and just, I don't know what she's doing.

It's, you know, a nightmare. Or, no, no, it's, you know, nighttime. And I'm like, Catherine, just settle down. And she's like a mad woman. And then she says, take care of Ralphie. Then she storms out. And Ralphie's the dog. Yeah.

That's a statement. Sorry. So they talk to him more and then what about after you uh you're you know finding the body and he said so i get in my car and i drive over there so anyway so anyway let me tell you about when i find this body said that being questioned about a murder so anyway anyway. So anyway. Like he's on the phone trying to get off a casual conversation. So anyway.

Anyway. So yeah, I drive in my car. I look over there and I look down and there's my wife in the water. And I run down and I drag her out and I try pushing her chest. And so and I try pushing her chest. And and I try pushing her chest and and so anyway, she wasn't alive. So anyway. Thank you. That's why I wanted to really focus on.

So anyway, because there's a so anyway, she wasn't alive. He said it twice. Followed by she wasn't alive, which is a very blunt thing to say. Oh, so. And so anyway, long story short, she's she's fucking croaked out. which is a very blunt thing to say. Holy shit. So anyway, long story short, she's fucking croaked out is basically what he said. Long story short, she croaked in the water. Next question. What are you, nuts?

So anyway, this motherfucker. So anyway. How do you say that about Jeff? So anyway. Twice now. He said, so anyway, when talking about major things here. About his dead wife. What the fuck?

Now, the deputy, Tanya Warren, all the other people there who arrived about a minute or so after him, didn't observe him doing any sort of CPR. So so if he tried cpr it was for like 15 seconds because they didn't see shit there like he barely had time to get out of his car and get into the water never mind perform cpr see it's not working and give up and try to drag her out of the water then that's way too much for that and in the autopsy they observed no uh evidence of resuscitation attempts at all yeah no chest compressions nothing like that so that's a that's a big deal as well he uh they asked him about the bruising the board of law examiners i like how they've the missouri board of law examiners are way more thorough than 17

fucking law enforcement agencies investigating a woman's murder This is for a law license. Right. This is a job interview, more or less. Holy balls, man. Jesus Christ. So they asked him about that. The board said, do you have any knowledge as to the source of the bruising around her neck? He said, no. All I know is that the coroner stated that that type of bruising was consistent with people that had fallen down while they were drunk or otherwise. I mean, I just know that's what

the coroner told us when we were sitting there in his office that's not what he said he's the opposite of that he said this is not yeah because how the fuck do you fall down and get bruises around your neck in a circle how the explain to me how you do that unless you fall into a stockade how the fuck do you do that fall into poison ivy even the girl in million dollar baby only had the bruising on one side of her neck yeah it wasn't the hole in a ring for christ's sake so um that's he said and i like how he said i mean i don't know it's just what the coroner said like it's just the rumor around the yeah you know he said a lot of different rocks and beat the shit out of her neck you know it was just all neck it was was all on her neck. So anyway, am I a lawyer? I can do this, right?

So the board then said, so, I mean, the pathologist at least concluded that she did not have sufficient levels of chemicals in her body to, quote, stumble around and become incapacitated. He says, quote, well, I would have to disagree. Pray tell, sir. I'd love to hear this. He said, I would have to disagree because I'm on the medication and you have to you have to start at a certain level. Then you work your way up to that dosage. I was already at that dosage. If you know, I took my regular sleeping pills, only one. And then if I drank alcohol on top of it, I would have been stumbling around.

That's all true. Then the board says there was no alcohol in her blood. Yeah. And he went, so anyway. I don't like that fact. Next question. Do we have, are my, is this, we're done now? Is this good?

He's a terrible lawyer. He's a terrible lawyer in space. He's a terrible, that's? Is this good? He's a terrible lawyer. Parking space. He's a terrible, that's, he's a bad murderer and a worse lawyer. He's just really bad at this. So if he's a murderer, he's a terrible one at it. So the FBI agent here, 2004, the case was, basically it was closed at that point. And it remained that way until an FBI agent named John Teeling started reviewing the evidence. He picked up a cold case and started looking through it.

And he said a conversation he had with an assistant that year stuck with him. He said, quote, she said they were closing a case on a murder that was very disturbing. She said the belief was that Brian Laird, an attorney, had murdered his wife. And she ultimately was murdered by putting his foot on her on her back or his knee and killing her in a body of water and watching her drown. Wow. Which is a horrifying way to die. That makes sense. Absolutely horrifying.

It was just a small area on her back. That's a knee. It's a fucking knee, man. A knee on the back and holding her fucking head underwater. Unbelievable. That's disgusting. man this is a knee on the back and holding her fucking out underwater that's disgusting um so he opens the case and uh he speaks about everything he re-interviews everybody looks over all the interviews he said katherine was unhappy sad and she made a decision that she was going to end the

marriage or file separation papers so that was that makes sense to him. Yeah. He said that, you know, he talked to the to the mother, to her mother, Mary Lou, talked to the sister. Brian Laird became angry after finding out that Catherine wanted to leave him when they found that out from the family. And he says that he spent about a thousand hours on this case, this dealing guy, which is way more than everybody else did in the beginning it feels like so uh by the way in 2008 brian had been convicted of an unrelated felony in colorado i don't i for the life of me could not find what the fuck he was convicted of in colorado but it's a felony yeah it's a felony of some kind but i mean it could have been something yeah paper we don't know what it is but who knows september of 2012 the andersons are finally interviewed wow teeling when he's going through meticulously going through every page of everything he found the envelope in the fucking file the one that was talked away by

ranger ryan but yeah and said ranger ryan august, 1999, which is six days after the murder, and found a note about late night argument and all that. And hearing the Anderson said that all through the summer they were arguing and all this type of shit. And he said, what the fuck? How is no one talk to these people? What are we fucking doing here? Then he hires this guy's awesome. They contact Mark Majerus, who is, he is a grass expert.

Really? He's an expert in grass. He's a biologist. I would call you a grass expert. Yeah, I was going to say, I was going to say more than I am. He's a grass expert. It was a weed joke coming there, don't worry. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, he specializes in identifying grasses this guy seems which i love i'll bet he burns it oh you know he does he's like listen buddy you smoke and he's like let me tell you the difference between sativa and indica bud all right come over here pal so he he uh he he said that he examined the sweatpants that she was wearing when her body was found in the afterbay. He is a botanist, agronomist, and a consultant and a guest instructor also at the Rocky Mountain College in Billings. He authored a book entitled Forage and Reclamation Grasses of the Northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountains. Wow, he's got a book about it wow so he is a dry it's like a wheat thin fart just dry that is a guy that anytime he talks you

say so anyway so anyway uh jesus christ fuck man he's like let me tell you about the grasses of the northern i i am not gonna listen to you tell me about the grasses of the northern. I am not going to listen to you tell me about the grasses of shit. So he said. Shut up. Shut the fuck up. He said he found two species of grass on Catherine's sweatpants. Yes, there was a nice kush cake there that was delicious and a sour diesel. No, they said he found four cheatgrass seeds were affixed and into the cloth of her sweatpants

high on her left leg, the area of the left thigh, in the area of the left thigh. He noted these seeds were deep in the cloth and had no awns attached. He indicated that cheatgrass seeds mature around the 4th of July and are purple and or reddish in color. He also advised that this type of grass is relatively short and people often

get these seeds attached to their socks when hiking or running through cheatgrass. He also said the location of these seeds make him believe the person was wearing the sweatpants, the person whoever was wearing the sweatpants was lying on the grass or dragged across the grass to create the placement of these seeds inside of their sweatpants. He found that the leads for all four of these seeds were broken off and rubbed down to the hard part of the seed. He looked into the top interior portion of the sweatpants and observed the three cheatgrass seeds affixed to the interior cloth. He said that the seeds did not enter the clothing through the outside, but affixed themselves on the inside of the sweatpants, and he said it could have happened if the sweatpants were rolled down

or the person wearing them was dragged. He also examined the backside exterior of the sweatpants, noticed two sets of glooms, G-L-U-M-E-S. Yeah. I don't know. Glooms affixed to the exterior of the sweatpants noticed two sets of glooms, G-L-U-M-E-S, glooms affixed to the exterior of the clothing and through the clothing at the center portion of the left leg on the backside. He indicated that the glue would have been forced into the pants backwards. He opined that this was a sign of dragging. He also said that if a person was walking forward,

this couldn't occur on the back of the pant leg like he observed. So he also examined the inside back, like the ass area of the sweatpants, and noticed another cheatgrass seed lightly attached to the interior cloth. So they took him to the after bay where Catherine's vehicle was found

and to the overflow parking lot where her body was found. And he said that the type of grass found near the overflow parking lot located above where Catherine's body was found was crested wheatgrass. As he walked down the slope from the parking area, he found that the grass changed to needle and thread grass with some cheatgrass interspersed among the needle and thread grass. After examining the area, him and the agents moved to the after bay parking lot and performed the examination of the grasses over there and he said the dominant grasses in that area were smooth

brome grass and he said that he observed pubescent wheat grass. Pubescent. Very young. It's just sprouting some fucking pubes here very youthful very youthful he stated there was no needle and thread grass found in the immediate area where the vehicle was found he then examined the grasses located down the slope from where her vehicle was found and observed prairie sand reed and attested there's no signs of native grasses in the area

with the exception of a small patch of needle and thread grass located 40 to 50 yards northeast of where the vehicle was found. In addition, basically it's not over there. So he found a striking difference in the grasses and vegetation between the overflow parking lot, which is where the body was, and the after bay parking lot, where the vehicle was, and stated the clothing observed belonging to Catherine show a prevalent number of items from the overflow parking lot so that's what they're saying so they parked he parked over there and drug her over there

she was dumped she was dragged through the grass not where her body was one way or another she was so anyway what something yeah so anyway fuck my life so anyway that is a that's crazy that they that they had the the pants still luckily uh for him to look at it you know what i mean and they had all the shit and who knew that there was that that's impressive go in there and find tiny seeds in the embedded in the fabric of the inside of the sweatpants nobody thought to fucking look that many types of grass growing near a fucking lake it's crazy so with all of this they basically have the bruising they have the evidence of the argument they have physical violence earlier in

the day they have all of this they have basically that he's a huge asshole that his story changed dramatically from one time to another yeah uh through all and that he just a huge asshole, that his story changed dramatically from one time to another. And that he just his attempts to be like, I don't like the whole, well, she must have been drunk and stumbling thing. No alcohol in her body. She must have been drunk and stumbling. Like, why would you think that? Very dismissive and coming to a conclusion that has zero facts that support it. that has zero facts that that support it yeah wouldn't you be like oh my god someone my wife left and someone who might have been camping down there fucking killed her holy shit that would be my thought if i didn't kill her right i wouldn't be like well she must have been drunk and stumbled

and fell in and died and i guess that happens well so anyway i'm just gonna owe my life here he tried to create an accident uh yeah scenario without any fucking facts to support it's really a bad plan terrible lawyer imagine this guy's mounting your legal strategy from start to finish here's what we're gonna do trying to make everything an accident listen it was all an accident so what do you mean i already had no accident sir accident just whoever it is i just want you to get it knocked down to civil. That's it. That's it. No, no.

Accident. We're going to tell him it was an accident. We're going to tell him you had a stroke and your foot pressed deeper on the gas. That's how it is. Malfunctioning car. How's that? What do you say? Dude, just get it knocked down.

You brought forth this evidence that I was drinking and doing sleeping pills off the dash. You got me a DUI. I just wanted the speeding knocked down to civil. Listen, I know you guys, I know you and your neighbor are fighting over four inches of property and all this. Tell you what, let's just say you own the Brooklyn Bridge. What do you say? What? No, I'm not doing that.

So after all this shit, anyway, after all this shit, the state decides to charge him with deliberate homicide in September of 2014. He pleads not guilty. So it's been 15 fucking years for this shit. Unbelievable. He pleads not guilty. Before the trial, he filed a motion to dismiss for pre-accusation delay arguing that a 15-year delay between the death and the official accusation violated his due process rights what what statute of limitations is on murder you

asshole there's nothing well i mean you could have accused me before. No. He's saying, like, if you were doing this on purpose to, like, wait till they're weaker and, like, witnesses that were on his side are now dead, like, that would be predatory. But they're just fuck-ups who didn't put it together till fucking three years ago, moron. And you're a bad lawyer. So I don't know what kind of lawyers you're going to hire. Shit ones, probably. I'm not sure. Randy Jackson took all his investigation to Hollywood. Yeah, so we don't know what happened there.

It's just him, and it could be anywhere, honestly. We don't know. So that's what he says. So the trial comes around, and if convicted, he faces anywhere from a minimum of 10 years in prison. Right. He could get 10 years up to the death penalty. Wow. From 10 years to death is a huge window.

Oh. Wow. That's staring down the barrel, my friend. Holy shit. That could go. That's unquestionable. Yeah. Wow.

And everything in between, you can imagine. So the state puts up 17 witnesses. They put up Mom. They put up mom they put up sherry they put up thomas to talk about her saying that she talked to them and wanted to get a divorce uh they put up um all sorts of people they put up the the neighbors who witnessed the cookie art the cookie incident the cookie beating the day before katherine's co-worker who called and when she didn't come to work they bring wanda in there who helped find the body. They bring all these people in here.

They bring the Andersons in there. It's a regular who's who. It's a who's who of Fort Smith. It's everyone in the town who heard the Lairds arguing. They bring in the officer who responded to the 911 call. Ranger Ryan they bring in. Hey, it to the 911 call ranger ryan they bring in hey it's ranger ryan everybody hey everybody there you go they bring in nocturnal did you know that i can take you on a berry eating tour if you want i'll show you the ones that won't make you

sick so anyway this is that's all he's got on trial ever this is all he's got on trial ever. This is all he's got. Yeah. They bring Randy Jackson in here as well. Oh, yeah. He's like, you know, I just said, I don't know, Doug. So I lost a bunch of weight. Oh, a bunch of weight.

It gets better to the coroner and the medical examiner are now like completely. It's amazing. They bring in the coroner they bring in the majerus the fucking grass smoker slash expert yeah and a bunch of other people that were around that saw shit 17 people this trial is a circus oh it's a circus though the state though what one testimony they don't put on is testimony from Dr. Mueller or Dr. Bennett, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsies there. Dr. Mueller died before the trial. So that makes sense there.

That's fair. I mean, he can't testify. But Dr. Bennett, they don't call because the state claims in 2012 investigators reinvestigating the case interviewed Dr. Bennett, who recalled injuries to her neck and uh opined that katherine was strangled and throttled that was his opinion in 2012 however between 2012 and 2016 he changed his mind changed his mind and observed only one post-mortem injury to katherine's hand and no other incapacitating pre-mortem injuries. Now, the state attributed this to the fact that in 2015

the state of Montana stopped contracting with him to perform its autopsy work. So they cut off his gravy train. So he's pissed. He's trying to fuck up the state's case. He's trying to mess it all up. Fuck all of you. Fuck all you hoes.

That's what he said. Get a grip, motherfucker. This is the beginning of a biggie song now. I was just trying to make some money to feed my daughter. All the people call the police on me. I was just trying to make some money to feed my daughter. Oh, man. So there we go.

That's his opinions. And the state says, yeah, you did that. And they introduced the evidence of Dr. Mueller's autopsy, the original autopsy. He's not there, obviously, due to death. But and they bring all of that in through the testimony of the coroner, also through Agent Jackson and through other people. The state sought to admit some statements Dr. Mueller made during the first autopsy through Agent Jackson, like when Agent Jackson was there and he said, this is very troubling. They tried to have bring that in through that. Agent Jackson explained the tone of Dr. Mueller's autopsy changed when he observed the condition of Catherine's neck.

He testified, quote, Dr. Mueller pointed to multiple areas of hemorrhaged blood in the muscles of Catherine's neck and said, this is troubling. He said it repeatedly. And then they objected to that resuscitation and they overruled the objection. And, yeah, they permitted him to get in the troubling statements. So there you go. They're also allowed to bring in all of the testimony from his board examination in Missouri. All of his so anyways? Yeah, all of his so anyways are allowed in there.

She's like, fuck. Who are you, a blues traveler? Jesus Christ. I have the worst attorneys. I might as well have done this myself, for Christ's sake. I'm bad. This allowed, yeah, so they allowed that. uh there was this allowed um yeah so they allowed that uh they also allowed um dr mueller's findings from the deal there and uh the forensic pathologist uh opinion was that katherine

lied out of a lair died of asphyxia by drowning she sustained a bruise to the left thumb at least several hours before her death multiple scattered bruises to the back and extremities around the time of the death and recent unusual bruises of the muscle of the neck. This is what they instructed the jury. We've not had the testimony from any pathologist at this point. And so that opinion is not properly before you and you are not to consider it. So there you go. They don't really get to consider it. So there you go. That's what that's.

They don't really get to consider all of that. So they also brought in photos of Catherine's body and they do that also, which are there. They look terrible, obviously compared to she's a beautifully young woman to like in her pictures. She's beautiful. So, you know, to see her dead and drowned is a terrible,

I can't imagine the dichotomy is too much. That's a's a contrast there it's a big juxtaposition so they said that um they object to the photographs of mission saying they don't have adequate foundation to admit photographs because it was not presenting testimony form and from the medical examiner so that's how they all try they try to do that uh but the state is allowed to bring photographs in as well through Agent Jackson. They also are allowed to cross examine Agent Jackson about the troubling remarks from Dr. Mueller. But that's it. He's not allowed to. They don't go further than that. So anyway, Laird questioned or his lawyers questioned two witnesses during the case in his defense here, Agent Jackson and Dr. Bennett. And that's it.

He had said they found also a photograph and a note that Brian that Brian had read to Catherine on July 15th that read, I'm sorry we've been fighting. I know you work hard and are helping a lot. I really appreciate all you do for me. I hope you have a great day. So he wrote that to her on the 15th, trying to make up with her here. So now the drowning testimony here, they've Dr. Bennett. Um, he, uh, at the start of his testimony explained the cons, the complex phenomenon of freshwater drowning. He said, he said, Catherine's body had bruising, but concluded most of the bruises occurred post-mortem. That's not, he said. He said Catherine's body had bruising, but concluded most of the bruises occurred post-mortem.

That's not what he said before, obviously. He came to the conclusion that after microscopically examining tissue samples excised from the bruised areas, he explained how if the injuries occurred prior to death, it would show microscopic evidence of vitality, that evidence of an inflammatory response.

So then they bring up, well, didn't you say that this bruise looked real and postmortem? That's exactly what you said in your report and premortem, not postmortem, premortem. And he explained that that type of bruise looking injury can occur from the drowning or autopsy process. So he now says whoever's paying him, he'll just say whatever the fuck you want so we now we ringed up her neck with through an autopsy we fucking jabbed the shit out of her neck yeah so basically he's got a report where he said one thing and now he's sitting up there going i didn't know what i was talking about now i have completely different opinions even though the body's not before me. And it was when I said that. 15 years of experience.

Now, post all this, I've learned a lot of things. And I've learned that sometimes the neck just goes purple. It just pops, man. It's weird. So, anyway. What's he saying? That's what he's saying. Wow.

On cross-examination, the state sought to impeach his credibility it began by asking in front of the jury whether he was once a pathologist in iowa and then they said uh they objected over that and he said the state said his credibility is clearly at issue here about his diagnosis of causation of death apparently the state asserted that he had a problem in Iowa. In 1997, he resigned as medical examiner in Iowa because of a misdiagnosis. And in a 2012 interview with detectives, he opined

that Catherine was strangled and throttled. And in 2015, the state told Dr. Bennett he could no longer perform autopsies, and then all of a sudden he changed his opinion right after that. So, they're like this guy is a fucking joke so they said did the state terminate your services and he stated he was never the state's employee and therefore could not have been terminated they said between

between 2012 and today's date were you either permanent terminated not rehired or unappointed as an assistant state medical examiner he responded with i don't even know unappointed what that is well you know what appointed is the opposite of that fucking idiot the state said the state said it's a yes or no he said i was never appointed so i guess if i was never appointed even if your office testifies i was never i was never appointed prior to and the state cut him off and said nothing further he's a dick so anyway yeah this guy's an asshole so unreal man i wish i just named that that's fun it's that's what i mean this doctor i know what i said and now what I think.

And now I said what I think is different than what I think and I said. And I don't know what the fuck. They should have beaten him with a bag of cookies. Yeah. Just a bag of burnt cookies. It was all a dream. I used to perform autopsies for the county. I used to perform autopsies.

Cutting torsos and. Cutting torsos and taking liver out your insides. He's an asshole. I love that they're so mad at him, though, and he's taking organs out your cavity. Weighing your spleen. Take your shit out. Weighing your spleen. Oh, God.

You know very well how she died she was strangled hard then dunked down inside it wasn't an accident she had no tequila this would be a fun one to parody for sure. This is ridiculous. So, yeah. So they said that in their closing argument, the state reminds the jury that Dr. Mueller initially indicated that Catherine's death in the after bay appeared nothing other than a simple drowning. That's how it began. That is until he got an internal examination of the neck and an extensive hemorrhaging. They said from that point, Brianrian laird was the one and only sub uh suspect obviously the state then goes over um let's go over uh people heard him yelling you fucking bitch you burnt my cookies and then cat you fucking bitch and no no no she was screaming and then quote we never heard from her again, is what they said. Then they said the Andersons told the FBI about 20 minutes later they saw Laird's white Toyota 400 drive by slowly.

Kathleen Anderson identified the driver as a man. It was him pointing to Laird, is what they said. Now, the defense attorney says, listen, prosecution oversold and underdelivered, babe. They don't have squat we got a guy he flipped to come to our side that's how cool we are we got this peace out bitches and they sat down and uh jury eight women and four men deliberated for about five hours which is a bad sign yeah about five hours came back guilty of deliberate homicide absolutely um so sentencing comes around yeah brian gives a statement here to the judge you see you got anything to say for yourself and he said

quote now keep in mind 10 years to the death penalty yeah it's the option he says i did not do this oh no don't do that i still still don't know how Catherine died. No. Bad answer. You're convicted. Apologize. Conviction, sir. He also revealed that it was revealed during the hearing his defense put up that he has been seeing a mental health professional and he's been abusing prescription drugs ever since his wife's death. He's just been a wreck.

That's probably what the charge was in Colorado, maybe. It's probably abusing those because you feel guilty. Maybe. He told different stories to different doctors, including that he told one doctor he saw Catherine die in front of him. He told another that they were in a boating accident and then at a different time told that same doctor she overdosed on medication. Why would you tell those? None of those happen. None of them are true. accident and then at a different time told that same doctor she overdosed on medication. Why would you tell those?

None of those have none of those. None of them are true. His attorney said that this is an extremely circumstantial case. We get that he's convicted, but it's extremely circumstantial. He said it's because his wife is gone. He recognizes the loss to the family. No matter what anyone else thinks, he has felt the loss every day. We request you give him a 40-year sentence. What about 40?

Let's meet in the middle. We'll go 40, huh? How about 40? You're his lawyer, and you're not going at 10? 40. I'm going for reasonable. If I ask for 10, it's kind of a slap in the face. We're going for 40, chief.

I'm your client. I am going to slap you in the face. No, shit. Can you ask for 10 and work our way up? Jesus, you're a terror. I bet you'd be a bad real estate agent, right? What is it, 400 grand? We'll give you 600.

Huh? His budget's six. We're giving you six. How about six? Well, his budget's higher than that, so that's kind of... Now, Catherine's family gets to testify in this as well, which is interesting. Her sister, Sherry Harbour, here. And like I said, her sister was also, through the years, her sister was constantly contacting law enforcement.

You got anything? Anything else? Anything new? This is what I mean. I feel like her sister is the type that you want a sibling like this that will avenge your death yeah you know if someone murders me make sure it's an accident not murder please like get on them and that's sherry tell you what if i'm dead something send all send everything to sherry yeah exactly no i'm dead serious sherry could be everybody's but nobody would want that sort of emotional pain but sherry could be everybody's, nobody would want that sort of emotional pain, but Sherry could be everybody's like siblings, dead, whatever, sister who can fucking work it out. So she said she had a tight knit family and that Catherine was a huge part of it. She says, quote, they destroyed the family.

There are no holidays. I couldn't pick up the phone and share my life with my sister. We did everything together um and she her mother mary lou said that she was wanted to be a veterinarian someday she could train any horse she just finished visiting um you know uh the mother here mary lou said i just finished visiting my mother at the cemetery and brian calls me and tells me that that's where she was by the way when she got a message she came home from the cemetery to a message something horrible has happened god jesus holy shit she said it was just too devastating to know that she died the way she did

and that she had her whole life ahead of her the judge says well let me see if i can take a little bit of the sting off it you sir may fuck off 100 years that's not close to 40 at all no that's 100 years oh that's over yeah you're fucked dude um so the family reaction here they're happy obviously um the mother said mary lou said i'm so I'm so elated. It's hard to explain. She can rest in peace now. Sherry, the sister said, I never gave up hope. It's been worth it to know that he won't be free anymore. Yeah. There you go.

The sister said that she got suspicious of Brian almost immediately when he suggested that she killed herself. Yeah. She's like, she wouldn't kill herself. And then she said, well, maybe she drowned. And she said, quote, I assure you, my sister did not drown right she knows how to fucking swim and then um thomas little the brother he said that uh he immediately suspected brian as well he said about brian quote he had an unbelievable temper and he said that his sister told him about brian abusing her from when they knew each other in college all the way up till now.

And he has seen bruises on her arms and face from Brian. So there's been physical abuse. He said, quote, I carry a lot of guilt. I didn't do more for her. No, you can't do that, man. You can't. But you wouldn't you? How could you not?

I would feel terrible even though it's not your fault. But still, it's it's fucking that's an awful feeling. I feel terrible for that guy. So, yeah, they said that. That's what they said. What is it here? This is Sherry. She said, even after the trial and conviction, did it give us peace?

Maybe a hair. It's never going to bring her back. And it's never going to give us what we wanted back. Fair enough. So, the appeal comes up here. August of 2019. Basically, there's seven justices here. OK, he is trying to say that the trial judge wrong judge allowed the agent to obviously testify to that. So there you go. Now, two of the four justices agreed with Laird. There's seven altogether.

There are four that are going to side on one side here. Two of them agreed with Laird that the trial judge should not have dismissed the case because the state did not present expert test or should have dismissed the case because the state did not present expert testimony that her death was a result of a homicide. Three of the justices said they would have upheld the conviction, arguing the medical examiner statement was admissible and a second autopsy found bruising in the muscles of her neck. The case was referred back to district court in Bighorn County, Laird's attorney, whatever. So the case goes back to the district court um holy shit um they the they said that uh they find they overturn his conviction oh my god they overturn his conviction um he can be retried though uh they overturn it so they once they make that announcement they ask the da it's the state intend to proceed with a retrial?

And he says, yes, your honor, we do. Oh, you betcha. So you bet your fucking ass we do. So that's good. So they're going to try to do that. Obviously, they spoke with Catherine Laird's sister after that. And she said, Sherry said, I mean, we're so devastated, to say the least. It was 20 years on July 31st.

So it's hard to believe we're going to have to the least it was 20 years on july 31st so it's hard to believe we're gonna have to go through this all again holy shit then she posts on all right this was a just recently august 22nd there is a facebook group if you guys are interested in following this by the way because i'm i gotta know how this whole thing turns out there's a facebook group uh katherine little in memory of there's a Facebook group, Catherine Little, in memory of. There's a Facebook group for her that gives all updates on what's going on with it and everything like that. And it's nice.

And a tribute to her, basically, too. And August 22nd at 1.50 a.m., they posted, quote, just letting everyone know we have to go through the trial all over again. It is currently set for September 26th, 2022. Please send up prayers. We need strength, please. A month from now, it's going to start again. It's going to start again.

Is he out or is he arrested on it? No, no, no. He's still, I think he's still, because his bail was revoked, so they'd have to have bail hearings and all that. He's still in there. Pending trial. This is, he could get acquitted. That's crazy, especially if they don't allow the this is troubling the bruising. All they're going to have is the second autopsy. There was some hemorrhaging there, but not have an examiner who was on the scene actually testify to what they saw.

Unless one will swallow his fucking pride of being fired and just fucking say what he thinks. And he can't do that because he's already testified the opposite way in court. So that would just completely, he wouldn't have any credibility. So this is in severe danger of this guy just serving

like two years in jail for killing his wife and having it not be a big deal and having him fucking walk free. I don't think they'll give him a law license again, but still, for Christ's sake. Fuck, man. Anyway, yeah, exactly. Oh, anyway, I'm disturbed by that. I hate it.

I mean, fuck, dude. She didn't fucking go out in the middle of the night to hang out in the dark by a creek and fucking drown. And beat the shit out of her own neck. Right. And then drown. Yeah. And drink tequila, which she didn't.

It's not possible. Someone did this. And one person I know of was beating her up and chasing her around, hitting her with cookies. Just that day. Just that day. I know no one else that was chasing her, beating her up all the time. Had a fight with night before that night minutes before minutes but heard by neighbors through the the shower of a coachman you know

you know it's real when it's through a shower vent and a coachman is what i'm getting at so there you go that said that is fort smith montana and some crazy fucking shit that's going there and this is like i said a continuing case you guys can check this out we'll go to that facebook group and look it up and uh you know it's gotta be hard on the family so be supportive don't be dicks here be supportive about the whole thing don't be in there like i don't think you did it like fucking be supportive and be friendly here who the fuck are you if you listen to that yeah if you listen to that yeah if you have that opinion i'm like come on man i mean that's just what do you yeah what are you a grass expert or something

and i also have a bridge to sell you as well because the guy who owned the brooklyn yeah that's gonna be me so there you go everybody if you like the show tell the world about it get on whatever app you listen on and uh tell everybody about it get on um give a five-star review it helps a lot say something nice about the show it helps drive us up the charts it feeds that funky algorithm and we don't understand how it works so keep doing that uh follow us on social media we're at murder small on twitter at small town pod on facebook at small town murder on instagram as well and uh if you want to also go to the website shutupandgivememurder.com

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And I can't go there. So it pops up. Do your thing with that. And Patreon, of course. Patreon.com slash Crime and Sports is where you get it all. Everything. All the bonus material. And anybody $5 a month or above, you are going to get access to everything we put out bonus-wise.

Crime and Sports and Small Town Murder. And we're not just going to do nothing. We're not going to do a little thing once in a while. Every other week, you are getting two new episodes, and they are bangers. We're not fucking around. It was all a dream. That's right. Super Nintendo Sega Genesis.

That's what we're doing here. You're getting Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, motherfuckers. Let's go. That go that's right got two rides a limousine with the show for motherfuckers so that's what we're all about here do that this week the two shows you are going to get are going to be for crime and sports you're going to get um sex scandals part two and boy are they good whoa we're going to finish the duke fuck list, which was a woman's senior thesis where she fucked a bunch of athletes and detailed and oh my God, so detailed and descriptively about their dicks and how it's really detailed. of each guy and all this shit and also some other sex scandals as well. Dudes banging other guys, other teammates' wives,

a guy fucking his sister-in-law and writing her poems and shit. We'll talk about all of it. It's super weird. And then for Small Town Murder, we're going to talk about some Zodiac Killer stuff, specifically the goddamn documentary

that's out right now. That's bullshit. About the guy, because the front of it, the cover looks like, oh man, look at that. We're going to find some shit out. That's like the drawing come to life and it's this guy who thinks his father's the Zodiac Killer and he

thinks he cracked the case and put it all together and the guy's name was written out in the ciphers and the whole fucking deal and it turns out that none of it was really held together by any much, anything at all and this guy was just really bored and wanted his daddy to be somebody exciting rather than some guy who just left when he was little and never saw him again so that's we'll talk about that and we'll talk

about the state of the zodiac killer investigation do they have a suspect do they know who they think did it we'll talk about it all there it now how we chase and patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get all of that good stuff and more and you'll get a goddamn shout out you know when you're gonna get that shout out right now so anyway this week's executive producers are kelsey baird happy birthday ps uh zach leonard Yeti Shetty in Canada. Gabriel Abel Marquez. Travis McGuigan, I think. Crystal Gotthard. It's got to be Gothard, right?

Not Gotthard. Or maybe. Maybe. Maybe Goddard. Goddard. That's possible. Or maybe it is Crystal Gotthard. How about that?

Crystal Gotthard. Cool. Other producers this week are Maria Kip Soosley, whose divorce is final. Congratulations. Hey. Congratulations. Hey. Congratulations. Booger Johnson, Sheda Perlman, Liz Vasquez, Peyton Meadows, Richard Leroy Johnson. He wanted us to put in the Leroy part because Richard Johnson is filthy.

Alex Hooper, Tanya Willis, Joe Settle in Portugal, Jason Gillis, Happy Hour checking in from Point Blank, Texas. That has got to be changed. That should not be a town name, just like Gun Barrel. There's nothing Arizona. Point Blank is terrible. I hate that so much. That is bad.

Erica Tavecchio, Rachel Gehr, I think, Gehr maybe, Janice Hill, Corporal Carl Kirshner wants a Mind Your Own Business sign. He went camping, and everybody has like little inviting signs for their camp spots and he wants one to tell people go the fuck away. Jesse, do we have them? Check.

Check. Check. Jesse the body Ventura, Brittany Caputo and her Scarlet Horby. Oh, good. Good. Nancy Weaver, Jeremiah Bueller, Susanna Platt, Jenny Linen, Madison Lopnow, I think, Amanda Hopp, April Chanel, Channel maybe, Kevin Bottomfritz, Brock Barrett, Phil Novak, Brittany Young, Calvin Ode, Tracy Buknek, Andy Schwartz, Leah Pitt, Amanda Carrington, Jennings Sanders, Hubert Cumberdale, Josh with no last name, Felicia Richardson, Glenn Lyle, J.H., Griffin Gastel, Tiara Walker, Tiara maybe, Leah Kassar, Don

the Donkey Hammer Teeter, what? Very nice. Is that a wrestler? I don't know. Julie Croft. We talked about Donkey Cox. Oh, there he is. The Donkey Hammer.

Small town murder, yeah. Yikes. Julie Croft, Crow maybe. Joseph Scott. Adelina. Adelina? I think that's right. Elizabeth Glenser. Andrew Schultz.

Probably not. Cheryl Carmer. Amanda Hood. Joey. Nope, that's Joe Barty. Jill Gretzky. Jesse Rowland. Eric O'Malley.

Karen Wake. Wakey, maybe. Sarah Ehlers. Ehlers, probably. Amelia. Nope, that's Emily. Emily Boyle. Jameel Parker.

Adrian. This is how I read, P.S. I go, maybe that's the word. Adrian with no last name. You're working through it. Real time. This is how I read books, too. Antonio Verde.

Verde. He does not read books, by the way. That's a huge fucking lie. This is why I don't read books. That's more accurate. Because this is how i read books uh jared edwards jason barron uh tony bowler james darley uh kyle white hannah ford tom fearon i think madison tamichi chelsea huntley joseph potter kyle wilson autumn stacy tony uh lynn maria t Huntley, Joseph Potter, Kyle Wilson, Autumn Stacey, Tony Lynn, Maria T, Elizabeth Dillon, JPB Gerald, Sandra Garza, Shelby Potter, Lisa Cook Parsons, Persons, Vanessa Andrade, Georgia

Pejan, oh boy, Mayatua Tiamosha. That's not right. I'm so sorry. You really, you had no confidence in that. None. Not a bit of it. Lauren Fori, Monty Pastrami nips. Evidently, everybody's got some sort of cold cut nips.

Very nice. That's good to know. Call me back when someone has suppersetta nips and we'll talk about it. I really like a suppersetta. Connie Pocanese, Jesus. Christina with no last name. Tom with no last name. Molly Horan.

Oh, boy. Bear Honeywell. Carolyn Mockenhopped. Chelsea H. Alexis Mottichuk. Is she making motors or something? I don't know. Kathleen Molka. These last names are brutal.

Supporter of human rights. It's got a 12-valve. It's a 12-valve Mockenhopped over here. We had it put in last week. It's going to blow these motherfuckers off the line, man. Ethan Blankenship. Quincy Jamagwatt. John Kachian.

That's not a word. Katie with no last name. No, it's a name, not a word. Jennifer with no last name. Marcus Patton. Victoria Bierschmidt. Elizabeth Dufour. Tracy Housen.

Christina Perez. Dee Hernandez. C. Ellis, Heather Barker, Quabian Barbary, Corey Hopkins, Alexis Mott, Jesse Davis, Deanna Hughes, Jerusha Warren-Green, Jessica Gray, Crystal P., Helen Higginbottom, Tatiana would know last name. Olivia Gilliam Smith. Dallas Smith. C.J. Buford. Jamie Bacciacci. P.J. Lewis. Jillian McGowan. Zoe Konzel. Allison Allenson. Coons would know last name. Amanda Morris. Daniela Anarella. Riley Renser. Busselman. McKenzie would know that same heather perel graham oatkin sam phillips josh smith rebecca morris etienne peraltz valerie brophy jim and lisa weiger uh kylie kaylee morgan uh megan macron rants jesus christ neil hazleton anthony Jesus Christ. Neil Hazleton, Anthony Nash, Nate Spolman, Rebecca Medina, Matt Still, Michelle Zaben, Janie Snodgrass, Catherine Thompson, Michael Johnson, Chase Skibidzitski, Jennifer Vogel, Danielle Kugler, Steph Jennings, Naomi Effinger, Ryan Riley, Megan Byers, Terrence Jones, Sabrina Scarborough, Marshall Long, Michael Gaffney, Fedora0521, nope, 010. What? I don't know numbers either.

I don't do numbers. I don't do numbers. Christopher Cullen, Autumn Turea, Michael Huff, Jacob Graves, Jerome with no last name, Cargo Brooks, Tim Shepard, Sophia Monroy, Duke Rendon, Nicole Tullis, Rick Williams, Reagan Thorpe, Marceline Guyette, Lizeth Romo, Bailey Schwan, I think, Daily, Daniel, not Daily, Daniel Harris, Cary Brockman, Andrew Sebal, Arfi720, Corey with no last name, Josh Fortis from Mesa, Michael McCarthy, Ashley Meyer, Lucas McBean, Isabel Greenwood, Kristen Griffith, Tracy Eaton, Adiana with no last name, Catherine Siv, Aaron Krause, Kiefer Cowley, Cameron Wamsley, Thomas Wiffle of the Wiffle Bats, I imagine. Oh, of the Wiffle. That's a fortune. Wiffle fortune, man.

I've given them so much money on my own. Alice Smith, Michaela McCone, Luca Excel, Joanna Phillips, Robert Bailey, Will Phillips, Pamela Roberts, Heather H., Bryn Lukert, Brett Brewer. That's a rough one. Matthew Harrington, Ashley Nelson, happy birthday. April with no last name. Kyle Haw and Simon Miller and all of our patrons. You guys are incredible. Thank you so much, everybody.

You're a bunch of heroes. You guys are the fucking you so much everybody you guys are the fucking best all that you do for us we appreciate it we hope you love the patreon episodes as much as we enjoy doing them so thank you for what you do for us thank you for changing our lives thank you for everything thank you for coming to live shows by the way there's gonna

be a virtual live show announced oh when huh watch out for that watch out i'm not gonna tell you when but it's coming soon it's coming so soon everybody so check all that out and come see us and do all your shit if you want to follow us on social media very easy go over to shut up and give me murder.com there's a link to us both also you can do look for small town murder podcast hosts and google that we'll find'll be there. Links to all that shit. That says,

or that says, that said, says, whew, Jesus Christ. Been a long week, everybody. That said, thank you so much.

And until next week, it's been our pleasure. Bye. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.